Semi Final Form: The Fighting Spirit v the Oranje Machine

HOME. Since 1930, including this year, there have been 19 World Cup Finals. 

Of those 19 finals, Germany are the most successful of the current Last Four having played in 12 previous semifinals, going to 7 finals with 4 World Cup victories. 

Next is Uruguay, who won the tournament in 1930 and 1950. 

The 1950 edition interestingly enough was played without semifinals or even a final as the top four teams from the group stages played in a round robin format with Uruguay finishing top. 

Uruguay’s last proper semifinal was in 1970 in Mexico when they lost to Brazil 3-1.

Spain were part of the 1950, last four round robin, finishing 4th. This is their first proper semi-final.

Holland have played in three previous semifinals, in 1974 and 1978, both times winning their semis before going on to lose in the final against Germany and Argentina respectively. 

In 1998, in France, the Dutch were knocked on in the semi-final by Brazil on penalties who went on to lose that final against France.

Uruguay is an interesting case study. 

Their coach has noted that with a population of only 3 million there are some countries in the World Cup with more footballers in their population than Uruguay has people. 

As Richard Williams writes in today's Guardian, football is interwoven into the Uruguayan social fabric. 

Perhaps Uruguay is best represented by the leftist writer, Galeano who had hoped to become a footballer and whose writings portray the glory and decline of the game in a country where it belongs to no single social class and where the fans still cling to a concept of la garra – fighting spirit – which in the modern era has become synonymous with ruthlessly physical approach to the game. 

See Richard Williams in today's Guardian.

Galeano writes, on the possibility of the underdog, ‘in football, rarities occur. In a world organized around the daily confirmation of the power of the powerful, nothing is rarer than the coronation of the humiliated and the humiliation of the crowned. But in football, at times, this rarest of events does happen.’

While I have chosen the Dutch in all the office pools and conversations with friends, something leaves me wondering whether there is not something to Galeano’s words which could be a precursor to a further upset tonight.

The problem with the Dutch for me having been an historic supporter going back to my first World Cup memories in 1978, is that they just don’t play like Dutch teams of past. 

There is a cynicism and brutishness that has crept into their play most evident by the lumbering van Bommel in the middle of the pitch and Arjen Robben on the wing, who like Ronaldo, will go to ground prior to contact, roll around, and seek to get his opponent booked. While not at fault at all in Melo’s sending off on Friday, Robben is an instigator of note and if tonight’s match does boil over, don’t be surprised to see Robben at the centre of it all.

From a Dutch perspective, what would be exhilarating would be to see the introduction of young Eljero Elia, the 23 year old of Surinamese descent. Elia has electric pace and sublime skills and is the next big thing coming in Dutch football. He is good enough to turn a match and while he has been used sparingly he provides the Dutch with that X factor they have been missing. His introduction tonight could just swing things for the more workmen-like than inspiring Oranje!