It’s Make or Break for Brazil and the Netherlands

Netherlands v Brazil
Preview

Venue: Port Elizabeth
Date: Friday, 2 July 2010
Kick-off: 1500 BST

MATCH PREVIEW
This Friday’s match at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium promises to be fascinating as the tournament’s first and fourth ranking team come head to head. The question is will it be a stunning display of skill, or will it be a scrappy edgy match.

Both teams are absolutely intent on winning, both coaches have expressed this and that they will do anything it takes to achieve. Recently coach Bert van Marwijk said “We came here to win, if we can win with beautiful football then fine, but I said when I took this job that we would also have to learn how to win ugly games."

This seems like a fair point from Van Marwijk, in past years the Dutch team have equally provided us with delight and dismay and are heading into Friday’s match not having lost 23 games in a row (which is a national record) and having won all of their eight games of the World Cup so far. Their star players such as Robin van Persie, Wesley Sneijder and Rafael van der Vaart have not yet shone through in this tournament, however, their defence which has been called weak before, have not yet let a goal through, the only goals scored against the Dutch have been from penalties.

The Brazilian coach Dunga was the captain when they won the World Cup in 1994 which unsurprisingly required beating the Netherlands. The team that year came under criticism for a negative approach and Dunga seems not to mind what is said about his current side. This seems fair,  so far only Germany and Argentina have scored more goals than them and Fifa statistics show that Brazil have set up more goal chances than any other side in the competition.

MATCH FACTS
Head-to-head
This is the 10th time that these two teams have played each other, so far Brazil have won three, the Netherlands two and there have been four draws. This is their fourth meeting at the World Cup, in 1974 the Netherlands reached the final thanks to defeating Brazil 2-0 in the second group stage, in 1994 Brazil won 3 – 2 in the quarter finals and their 1998 semi final ended 1 – 1 and Brazil won on penalties.

Netherlands
So far the Netherlands have won four World Cup matches in a row which is equal to their best ever run in 1974 when they reached the finals. Before this World Cup the team won 19 games in a row and last lost in September 2008 to Australia in Eindhoven. In their last eight World Cup matches they have only conceded four goals and in four matches kept a clean sheet.

Brazil
Brazil have been in the last eight sixteen times out of the last 19 World Cups. They have only lost one out of their last thirty games, this was a qualifying game played at altitude in Bolivia after their place had already been guaranteed. Brazil have taken part in every World Cup and so far have won it the most times, a total of 5.