World Cup Diary – Jun 28

Ah yes. I had a feeling this would turn out to be a good birthday. The moment I realized that Holland would be playing their second round match today I had decided. The stars had aligned correctly. The heavens were conspiring to make Holland win on my birthday. Perfect.

And they did win, pretty comfortably. Despite the fact that they still do not seem to be at their fluid best, they have negotiated their four matches till now with consummate ease. And with Arjen Robben barely playing a part till today. Today, he finally made the starting line up, and how he made his mark on the tournament. A great goal and Holland were on their way. Sneijders second in the second half confirmed it, while Slovakia’s last gasp penalty gave an unnecessary respectability to the scoreline. The truth was, Holland hardly looked like losing this match. And considering the ease with which they managed to survive a good part of the second half without Robben and Van Persie (who were substituted) shows the management’s confidence in the bench. If Brazil do, as expected, make it through their match against Chile, expect a nail biting contest in Cape Town. Undoubtedly, that will bring back memories of the last great Dutch team’s heartbreaking loss on penalties to Brazil at France ’98. That team had the De Boer brothers, Overmars, Kluivert, Davids, Seedorf, Jonk… and the peerless Dennis Bergkamp, but they fell at the penultimate hurdle. Can the class of 2010 lay to rest the ghosts?

Yesterday night’s match saw Argentina, as expected, convincingly book their place in the quarterfinals against a very good Mexico team, who must be wondering what they have to do to break their second round jinx. Since USA ’94, they have been exiting every world cup at this stage. However, the result was again marred by a laughably bad decision, when Tevez was yards offside for Argentina’s first goal. The poor referee’s angst was increased when the stadium organizers, in a major gaffe, showed replays of the goal right after. But since the referee has no right to change his decision based on TV replays, the goal had to stand. FIFA and their human element. Go figure.