We just received this opinion piece out of Mexico via email from our friend Marcelo. Marcelo is a native son of Montevideo, a fan of Penarol and of course a close and longtime follower of the Uruguayan national team (we were talking World Cup history with him over the weekend, and he said the first World Cup he remembers is 1974–when, in a bit of historical resonance, Uruguay fell to the the famous Dutch side in the group stage).
[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.
As we eagerly await the resumption of play with tomorrow’s two quarterfinal matches (Brazil vs. Holland in the early game, Uruguay vs Ghana in the late game), here are a few links with the some news on each side:
Brazil’s Elano will miss tomorrow’s game due to an ankle injury–and may be done for the tournament;
Robin van Persie’s petulance causes yet more rumblings of strife within the Dutch camp;
Off the Post blog posts a handful of clips from Diego Forlan’s WC video diary;
and from GhanaWeb.com, “Top Five Records Ghana Will Set If They Beat Uruguay.”
