Semi Final Showdown In Cape Town.
It’s back to business at World Cup Spread Betting and South Africa 2010 today for the first of the semi finals when Uruguay takes on Netherlands in Cape Town. Uruguay will be complete outsiders for this match but this is a country who knows what it takes to actually win the trophy. Granted their last victory was back in 1970 but on that day no one gave them a chance when they came up against the mighty Brazilian’s in Rio. When you also consider that this is a country with a population of only 3.5 million people then their achievement is all the greater.
Uruguay coach, Oscar Tabarez is said to come up with a cunning plan to stop Arjen Robben inflicting damage on the Uruguay defence, this according to Sebastian Abreu, who scored the winning penalty in the shoot out victory over Ghana in the Quarter final when he cheekily chipped the ball straight down the middle as Kingston dived to his right. It was also his goal that sealed their qualification for the finals. The loss of Suarez for the game could have a huge bearing on the outcome as both he and Forlan have been in great form when paired together up front.
A lot of people are saying that Suarez should have got a longer ban than one match for the deliberate handball that stopped Ghana scoring in the final minutes of extra time, but lets face it any player would have probably done the same thing under the circumstances and if Ghana had scored the penalty we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. Suarez will be a big loss to Uruguay I feel that coach Tabarez will have to do more than stop Robben if they are to progress to the final as the Dutch have several players who can inflict damage such as Wesley Sneijder and Robin Van Persie any of which may be worth a punt for first Dutch goal of the match. On the Uruguay side, Diego Forlan would have to be first choice for that accolade who despite his spell with Man Utd has proven himself to be a top class finisher. It may be a bit of a long shot but Uruguay could actually do this.
Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk has warned his players against complacency saying Uruguay are not there for no reason and that any slip in concentration will end their dreams of becoming world champions for the first time in their history. The Dutch have appeared in two finals before in 1974 and 1978 and lost both. This was during the time when they played what was called total football and many would say that they were the best team never to win the world cup. They will be hoping that come the end of the match this evening they have the chance to put that right.
