Netherlands’ players good Actors. Fake their way to a European finals.

Uruguay-Netherlands match ended with a 2-3 win for the latter, effectively snubbing out the last South American team from the tournament. The brazil-defeaters kept up their reputation as tormentors of South American teams and continued their winning streak in this world cup – winning all their matches till now.

The score line does not give the complete picture though. For the first 20 minutes, Netherlands dominated the match with possession and good attacks. Their dynamic plays resulted in a wonderful goal in the 18th minute from skipper Van Bronckhorst. Around the 30th minute, Uruguay suddenly started coming back strongly by making plays and creating chances. Forlan’s left footer was a beauty to have found its mark in the 41st minute.

In the second half, although Uruguay had good possession of the ball in the midfield – in fact they were getting the ball at will from the Netherlands players, many times the throw-ins from Netherlands were directly picked up by Uruguay players, they were not able to dominate the box on either side. Their attacks seem to lose steam as they reach the goal area and their defense was slow to react. Uruguay even got a wonderful chance to equalize in the last 10 secs of injury time - Would have pulled the match into overtime, but the lacked strike to convert.

Of course, Netherlands had another ace up its sleeve. Netherlands had to give a lot of credit to its star actors – Robben, Mark Van Bommel played the lead roles while Persie and Wesley Sneijder provded to be good supporting actors. In fact the first Netherlands goal itself could have been disallowed for an unwanted “attack” on an Uruguay defender. Persie and Robben were so ready to fall, squirm, and fake just to start running again in seconds. Mark Van Bommel hit an Uruguay defender and rolled over and started clutching his own waist, all to limp for a few seconds and then to be back in action, truly the work of a genius – Shame on them.

Uruguay did fail to convert its chances, but Netherlands did not play as a team worthy of even being in the Finals on 11th.