First off, congratulations for Holland as they have just become the second country after Argentina to successfully qualify to the last 16 of World Cup 2010 with the narrow 1-0 victory over Japan in Durban. OK, one personal note about Durban before I continue on with the match. When I was younger and “stupidier”, upon seeing the word “Durban”, the first and only thing that comes into my mind was male underwear. Before anyone starts to doubt my sexual orientation, it's because I saw that brand of the briefs quite frequently but as I grow up, I got to know that Durban is actually one of the big cities in South Africa. Continuing on with the match, the scoreline seemed so unflattering after fans have expected a continuation of the goal flood from the last few days in the tournament. Nevertheless, this match had its fair share of excitement as well as some interesting talking points.
Looking at both teams, starting off from Holland, in my opinion the most crucial player for the Oranje (the commentator pronounced it as Oran-gee, but I am not sure myself, so I might have to clarify with a Dutchman (or girl)) is Nigel de Jong and not Sneijder and Robben, who was on the bench and served more as Holland's insurance policy of sorts if they find themselves in a tough spot. This is not to take anything away from the Holland no. 10 and 11 (especially the former, the scorer of the winning goal in this match), but it can be argued that the Dutch team would not be so compact, organized, and at ease if de Jong is not present in the “Makelele” role. Perhaps this opinion of mine was formed from the fateful (I am a Madridista) memory about Real Madrid's catastrophic collapse when they unceremoniously sold Makelele to Chelsea in 2004 but still, I believe this Dutch team will not be the same without the Manchester City man. Another point to take note of for this Dutch team is that Robin van Persie seems to be unfit and out of sorts in this match as well as in the Denmark match. It's likely that his injury ravaged season with Arsenal has taken its toll.
As for the Japanese team, their main man is actually not Keisuke Hondas as many fans would be fiercely arguing especially with him scoring the winning goal against Cameroon in their first match in the competition but their indispensable key man was undoubtedly defender Tulio as the Brazilian born was an absolute tower in the Japanese defense thwarting waves after waves of the attack from the Dutch in this match and also Japan's biggest attacking threat through set pieces as well as when Tulio moved up front in the last 10 minutes to become a makeshift striker. Also, he's my personal choice for the man of the match in this match.
The first half started with a possible controversy when at 8th minute Robin van Persie seemed to kick out at Japan's Komano until the Japanese was stretchered off and received some treatments and at 25th minute when van Persie flailed his elbow on Nakazawa. It's difficult to ascertain whether those were intentional, but I'll just include those fr the record in case this debate surfaces tomorrow in the papers.
Holland generally dominated the match with the possession as much as 75% in Oranje's favor, but they were not able to score. In fact, the most precise shot in the first half was Keisuke Honda's free kick in which the ball managed to hit the camera behind the goal.
The second half as usual was eventful and also where the goal was. The Jabulani debate set to be re-ignited again after it has settled in the past few days as at the 52nd minute, Sneijder launched a blistering long range shot to score a super goal in which the Japanese goalkeeper didn't manage to keep out. Replay suggested that the Japanese keeper had anticipated the flight of the ball but the bal might have changed its flight abruptly in flight. In any case, 1-0 for Holland.
Right after the goal, sense of urgency crept into the Japanese side as they tried to be more attacking., and also bringing in Shunsuke Nakamura hoping to exploit his dead ball specialty to score. They also brought on two more strikers Okazaki and Tamada and for the last 10 minutes even employed defnder Tulio as a makeshift striker as mentioned above, but they didn't manage to threat Maarten Stekelenburg's goal at all.
As for the Dutch, their substitutions proved to be interesting with the introductions of Eljero Elia, Klaas jan Huntelaar, and Ibrahim Afellay. Afellay almost made instant impact twice as he almost scored in two occasions. Eljero Elia also further showed why fans have increasingly demanding Bert van Marwijk to play Elia right from the start. Huntelaar also proved one more time that indifferent club performance might not be a reliable yardstick as he almost set up Afellay in one of his two close calls. Huntelaar certainly made more impact than the aforementioned unfit and out of sorts van Persie did throughout the match.
As mentioned, Holland has managed to qualify to the last 16 with 2 wins out of 2 while Japan will now have to win against Denmark if they want to qualify to the last 16 as well and keep Takeshi Okada's brave target of semi-finals alive. How easy or hard Japan's task would depend on the result of the match between Denmark and Cameroon. In any case, all over the Netherlands is sure to be painted orange in celebration of Holland's achievement!
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