Holland v Argentina - Semi final review

In the second semi final match Argentina beat Holland by four goals to two on penalties. It was a pretty dire affair with little interesting parts. 

This was a surprise as Holland had been playing fantastic free flowing football with Arjen Robben doing some amazing runs and as well as trying to dive for the odd penalty. 

Whilst Argentina had Lionel Messi scoring some very good goals. But I think the fact that all the play went through Lionel Messi somewhat stifled their creativity. 

So in the end it had to be decided on penalties and Argentina where more clinical and therefore won the game. 

World Cup qualifiers- round up

This week's World Cup qualifiers had some interesting results. 

England drew with Ukraine but two other home nations suffered surprising defeats.

Northern Ireland lost to Luxembourg and Wales lost to Serbia. The manner in which both teams lost was surprising to say the least. 

Luxembourg is a lowly ranked team so for Northern Ireland to lose to them was a little embarrassing. 

Although Serbia have a  good team, for Wales to lose to Serbia was surprising. Especially has they have Gareth Bale the new Real Madrid striker in their team. 

Neither Wales or Northern Ireland can qualify for 2014 which must be galling for their supporters.

Other notable European countries to qualify for 2014 are Italy and Holland who can now book their tickets to Brazil. 

The USA have made it again to the World Cup which is always a little surprising as they are not known as a footballing  country. 

However I would that their last two World Cup outings their results have been very similar to England.

So those October qualifiers should be interesting some countries can play their B team. 

Some countries, who have little prospect of qualifying will be playing for pride. Some countries like England still have it all to do but it is in their hands.