Netherland reached their first World Cup final since 1978. when the current pick finally stepped out of the shade of Total Football to hit battling Uruguay 3-2 in a excellent semi-final on Tuesday. They will face either Germany or Spain, who assemble in Durban on Wednesday, in a showdown that now guarantees a first European World Cup triumph on a foreign continent.
“Their keeper was terrific,” said Spain midfielder Xavi in honor of the impressive Eduardo. “He ended two or three great saves and even when we scored he made a superb stop from El Guaje.”
“I had a good game,” said by the Portuguese shotstopper, “but it wasn’t sufficient and in any case what really counts is the team’s performance and not what I do. It’s really trying to concede a single goal and get knocked out of the World Cup. Defence was believed to be one of our strong points but there was nothing we could do to stop them getting through.”
Group stage of FIFA World Cup 2010 has been ended today. There were 48 matches detained over the last 14 days with minimum 2 and maximum 4 matches being taken place per day. Out of 32 teams participating, 16 have progressed to the knock out stage, while other 16 sides have been eliminated from the match.There were 101 goals in 48 matches averaging 2.10 goals per match. But its Unfortunately, this is the lowest scoring rate in group stage since the number of participating teams was increased to 32 in 1998 World Cup. There were 5 matches that finished up without producing any goal. Portugal’s 7-0 win against North Korea was the highest margin victory.Round of 16, the first stage of the knock-out round, starts from 26 June. There will be 8 matches in the space of 4 days- meaning 2 matches per day. The losing teams would be knocked out of the tournament match, while the winning teams would reach the quarter final. So, round of 16 would see 8 more teams to be eliminated from the tournament.
If a match ends up in a draw after 90 minutes of playing, there will be 30 minutes of extra time split into two 15-minute periods. If the tie is still not broken, then penalty shootout would come into effect to break the tie between the two sides. In penalty shootout, each team is allowed to take 5 penalties and the team with highest number of goals from those 5 penalties is declared winner of the match. However, if the match is still tied, then ‘sudden death’ is used to decide the winner.