Here it is, gentle hippies. The big day! Will Holland come out and attack? Will Spain bore me to sleep with their incessant passing? Will they still be serving breakfast at noon when I get to the bar? All will soon be revealed!
Not sure just how much anyone will be attending to this site during the match, and afterward we’re all heading to the OkayAfrica festival over at the Prospect Park bandshell, so you’re all on your own. Play nicely!
We’re just 90 minutes away from kickoff in the 2nd semifinal, to decide who will play the Netherlands in the final game on Sunday. This matchup between European powers is highly anticipated; more so than yesterday’s Holland-Uruguay match was, but we can only hope that this one lives up to the expectations and turns out to be as exciting as yesterday’s 3-2 victory for Holland.
What better way to get a preview of today’s match than to revisit the finals of the Euro 2008 tournament, played on June 29, 2008 in Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadion, when Germany and Spain clashed with nearly as much as stake as today. Spain prevailed that day 1-0, off a goal by striker Fernando Torres–whose struggles to score in this World Cup have become something of a story line for followers of the Spanish side.
On the other hand, the striker who has been scoring for Spain in this tournament, David Villa, did not even play in that Euro final, due to injury. And on the other side, Germany’s revelation in the midfield, the young and dynamic Mesut Ozil, was not on the German squad.
Hence the indispensable Zonal Marking begins their tactical preview of today’s match (from whence we’ve pulled the probably starting lineup chart above):
[Note: We’re setting this up as a liveblog, but we’ll probably be too focused on the game to actually do so. So we’ll treat this one as an open thread. We’ll be throwing up some in-game comments–please do the same!]
Doesn’t it feel like a whole new, more compressed and more intense tournament starts today? Eight teams remaining, seven games to go (well, eight if you count the 3rd place game–but who really does?), beginning with four quarterfinal matchups–two today (Brazil vs Netherlands followed by Uruguay vs Ghana) and two tomorrow (Argentina vs Germany followed by Spain vs Paraguay).
The first of these may just be the most highly anticipated: Brazil vs Netherlands. What to say about this match? Obviously, this might just be a true classic.
The final contest of the Round of 16 kicks off at 2:30pm ET–an intra-Iberian matchup involving powerhouses Portugal and Spain. The winner will get slotted into the remaining quarterfinal match, taking on surprise quarterfinalist Paraguay on Saturday.
We’ll be watching the game from the awesome PlayBeautifulNYC popup virtual stadium in Soho/Nolita. We’re not sure if they have wifi–if so, we’ll be liveblogging from there; if not, we’ll try to post to the comment thread from our phones, but we’ll count on you to provide most of the color commentary!
We are 45 minutes from kickoff. Starting lineups and the ever-present comment box after the jump!
[Final Score: Paraguay 0 – Japan 0; Paraguay advances by winning PK shootout 5-3.
Paraguay advances to a quarterfinal matchup against the winner of Spain-Portugal (the last Round of 16 match, to be played later today at 2:30pm ET). Japan goes home, their hopes of representing Asia further in the tournament dashed.]
This is by far the most unexpected matchup of the Round of 16, with neither country having advanced to the quarterfinals of the World Cup before. Paraguay will be attempting to make the quarterfinals 50% South American (!), with Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil having already advanced over the past 3 days. On the other hand, Japan is trying to become the first Asian side to advance to the quarterfinals since South Korea in 2002.
We’ll again be sporadically liveblogging–we will post scoring plays, details about individual players, and observations about the general run of play. We’ll count on you to provide color via the comments!
We are about 15 minutes from kickoff! Starting lineups and a very welcoming and empty comment box after the jump!
