DE.

They quite literally played about 17 of the 120 minutes, and that was good old route one football. The rest of the match, including extra time, they did absolutely nothing. No clear game plan, no chances created, no tempo, no tackling (unless you count repeated fouls, in which case sure), nada. They made Spain look exciting in comparison.

Glad Argentina went through in the end. Only one team genuinely tried to win tonight and it wasn't the Dutch. Their first 83 minutes were shamefully lacklustre and they did nothing in extra time either, playing for penalties as if they were minnows. They didn't deserve to go any further.

Mid-2000s Bolton era tactics getting the Dutch back into the game. You love to see it.

Unbelievable.

LVG taking a page out of the Allardyce playbook with Van Dijk up front.

The Dutch played this match like they literally could not care less. One of the worst performances of the tournament.

What is the Netherlands' plan here exactly? Pass the ball around pointlessly until the full time whistle goes? 20 minutes to go, 1-0 down and they're playing like they're 4-0 up. Bizarre.

Wow. Brazil undone by their own complacency, thinking they'd won it after scoring. Horrific defending for Croatia's equaliser and you never want to go to the lottery of penalties. No dancing tonight.

Spain have been incredibly boring to watch since they first started this tiki-taka stuff in 2008. At the time it was successful so you can't blame them for doing so, but watching them play was, for me at least, 95% yawn inducing and 5% very impressive. It wasn't worth watching an hour and a half for brief flashes of brilliance, I could just watch the highlights for that. Nowadays teams have adapted to that style and worked out how to nullify it - Spain either need to evolve or accept they're back to where they were in the 90s, a largely irrelevent team who have potential but never get anywhere.

I'm not convinced Argentina have really turned it around. Their win against Australia was pretty laboured and otherwise they've lost to Saudi Arabia, scraped past Mexico and beat an abysmal Poland. Their match against the Netherlands will show whether they really have turned a corner, imo, but I'm expecting they'll lose unless Messi rolls back the years.

Yep, pretty much. This was an improvement on WC 2018 for them and with better luck they'd have been in the last 16 taking on Morocco or Croatia, with every chance of ending up in the quarters at the very least. It didn't happen for them this time, but sometimes that's football. The German media (and other media) are trying to conflate WC 2018 and WC 2022 into the same failure for Germany, when in fact there's significant differences between how they went out four years ago and how they went out this time around.

I read your last line as meaning the system is still in need of a reboot, ergo it hasn't started yet. If you meant the reboot is happening now and they need to have patience then yes, I was definitely agreeing with you! I saw a lot of reactionary stuff in the German media talking about sacking the manager and coaching staff now, how Germany aren't a tournament team anymore, how their national team is no longer elite, an embarrassment, etc... it was just way over the top and proves it isn't just the English press and supporters who sometimes go too far with expectations versus reality.

Switzerland one of those teams that are hyped pre-tournament and labelled dark horses, but almost always exit with a whimper fairly early on. This is probably the worst I've seen them in any semi-recent tournament though.

Not sure if Portugal are playing really well or Switzerland are just a bit rubbish. Maybe some from column A and some from column B.

Eh, I maintain they were just a bit unlucky in this tournament. A freak opening result (Argentina had a worse opening game result and still qualified), a credible 1-1 draw with Spain and they ended up beating Costa Rica comfortably after a brief scare. Had it not been for Costa Rica not turning up for their first match of the tournament it could easily have been Spain going out instead. Nobody would have anticipated Japan beating both Spain and Germany. It was a bizarre set of circumstances that saw them drop out. Now granted Germany didn't look great, but then a lot of the bigger nations looked poor in the groups and still qualified. I don't think they looked any worse than Argentina, Spain, Croatia or the Netherlands. Obviously from their perspective hugely disappointing to go out in the group stages for the second WC in a row, but this wasn't the same as their WC 2018 elimination. That was a team struggling at the end of the road, further confirmed in the Euros afterwards. This Germany is a team in transition from a manager that clung on for too long, and imo at least suffered a bit of bad luck in how results played out. 9 times out of 10 Japan don't beat Spain and Germany, nor do Spain beat Costa Rica 7-0. I don't think the German FA will overreact in the same way their media seem to be.

The one thing you simply can't train for is the pressure and the intensity in that moment. It's something that can only be experienced, not coached or trained for. The mentality of the individual player is key in that situation. He's obviously struggling to come to terms with the fact he isn't indispensible anymore and can't behave however he wants and get away with it just because he's CR7. A humbling lesson for him, but not one I'm convinced he'll learn much from.

Considering the public emphasis Luis Enrique put on penalties before the tournament, those were three shocking penalties from Spain. Maybe those comments ultimately backfired psychologically. Well done to Morocco. Hung in there and got their rewards. The prevailing cencesus before the tournament was that Spain's team lacked goals, and that was roundly rubbished after they won their first game 7-0, but that turned out to be an outlier and the doubters were spot on. Spain just couldn't score when they needed to.

An insipid performance from Spain tonight. If they go through we could handle them easily. I think I'd be more concerned with facing Morocco.

Same here tbh, I watch a tournament like this for competitive matches, not a Brazil exhibition.

A bit sad this. Just a massive gulf in quality. Brazil ruthless tonight.

Not convinced the Japanese practiced penalties - those were some of the tamest pen kicks I've ever seen, one after the other. If they do practice them then they are doing it wrong.

I've seen anti-England forums lads, this ain't it. Mostly decent debate about the strengths and weaknesses, current and historic, of England. Yes there are a few outliers on either side who go way too far into the negatives and positives, but such is life.

Both us and France looked poor for periods today against weaker opposition, but ultimately both won comfortably and that's all that counts in the end. It should be a fascinating clash next Saturday. Arguably the two best teams so far based on performances going head-to-head. Admittedly an argument could possibly be made for Brazil to be in that conversation as well.

Senegal never really threatened us. Any danger was completely self-inflicted by the terrible first half an hour or so. Once we scored it was as comfortable as you'll see in a major knockout match. Beat France and it's game on.

Poor before we scored. Good afterwards. A bit like a typical Rovers win.