Netherlands Send Brazil Packing and Uruguay Get Past Ghana

Netherlands 2 – Brazil 1

The Netherlands managed an amazing second half come back to knock Brazil out of the competition on Friday and secure their place in the semi finals.

Brazil had an early lead thanks to Robinho’s excellent goal, but early in the second half the Netherlands equalized taking advantage of a terrible defence mix up and Wesley Sneijder scored again later, taking advantage of another display of bad defending from the Brazilians.

The Netherlands now go on to play against Uruguay in the semi finals and thanks to Friday’s result the World Cup is now wide open, the South American sides were expected to dominate but with Brazil and Argentina out of the competition it could be anyone’s year.

Brazil was the team expect to progress out of all the South American sides and for the first half of this match it seemed like they would. However the Netherlands fought hard in the second half and truly deserve their place in the semis.

Uruguay 1 – Ghana 1 (4 – 2 Penalties)

Uruguay has progressed to the semi finals of a World Cup for the first time since 1970 ending the hopes of Ghana after an extremely dramatic finish to the game. In the final seconds of extra time Luis Suarez stopped Ghana from scoring using his hands on the line granting them a penalty. Ghana’s striker Asamoah Gyan came up to take the shot but skimmed the crossbar, meaning the game went to penalties from a penalty.

Gyan returned to take the first penalty and scored, however, John Mensah and Dominic Adiyiah both had their shots saved by the Uruguayan keeper Fernando Muslera. Uruguay managed to hold their composure with Sebsatian Abreu scoring the decisive penalty to send them through to the next round.

Suarez’s handball was a calculated risk which it seems he got correct, by blocking the last minute Ghana goal he sent his side through to the next round.