John Carlin's World Cup Blog: Romance 0, Vorsprung durch Technik 1

Argentina's 0-0-10 formation was never going to foil the Germans

Ghana didn’t do it for Africa, Maradona and Messi failed to pull rabbits out of hats, Brazil abandoned the samba smile for an ugly growl and South Africa’s Bafana Bafana never got the chance local poets and lunatics dreamed of to proclaim themselves champions of the world after hammering England or Argentina or Germany in the final.

What we’ve got, instead of romance, is hard-nosed football sense.

It is peculiar how in the mad hurly-burly of the game, one expert prediction after another having been rendered dismally foolish, the serious teams are the ones that have nevertheless contrived to make it to the final four. There is order in the football universe after all.

OK, you can have your doubts about Uruguay, but of the teams in their weaker section of the draw they are the ones with the history, with the pedigree, with the cunning. They are a solid team that, hopefully, Holland, avenging Hand of God Two, will soundly thrash.

Charmless Holland

The Dutch have abandoned the exuberant charm that has defined their football these last 40-odd years for a tighter, grittier game, one that seems more immune to the neurotic implosions that have bedevilled their previous shots at World Cup glory.

I’d worry about them in the final against Germany or Spain with the borderline bonkers Heitinga in central defence and their deeply aged captain, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, at left back.

But they have a neatly complementary midfield duo in the tough, shrewd Mark van Bommel and the subtle Wesley Sneijder. The trump card is Arjen Robben. He is a one-trick pony, cutting in from the right wing to shoot on goal with his left, but he performs it better than anybody in the world, and with lethal precision.

Stifling

The Uruguayans will try and do to the Dutch what Paraguay nearly did to Spain: stifle them in midfield, ankle-tap to exhaustion, defend with 10 men and hope that Diego Forlán, their lone blond ranger, will conjure something out of the three or four counter-attacking opportunities that come their way.

As for Spain and Germany, they are clearly the two best footballing sides in the World Cup, the ones with the least weaknesses, with mightily competent – sometimes brilliant – players in every position.

The intelligent and fluid total football each play lays bare the limitations of a team like Brazil, whose emphasis (like a man with a powerful right biceps and a weak left one) was all on fast, tough, valiant defence or like Argentina, who invented a new formation that marked a revolution – a crazy revolution -- in the history of the game.