netherlands look unbelievably slow and out of shape, especially at the back. portugal is just wearing them down like they aren't conditioned enough. their defense looks gassed, and like they were moving at 3/4 speed on portugal's break for ronaldo's second goal. it's sad.

They did not play like a team this tournament. It seems to me like a standard case of trying to play all of your stars on the field at the same time, instead of creating a team that functions together as a unit.

Portugal are a counterattacking team that mostly attack through the flanks and the Dutch response to this was an unbalanced midfield with Sneijder and Robben out wide, two players who don't do much defending. Van Marwijk botched his tactics in my opinion. I would have kept Sneijder in his proper role like the first game and placed a more physical, defensive oriented winger on the flank like Dirk Kuyt.

I couldn't believe the Dutch manager thought it would be a good idea to go and play a 3 man defence at the end of that game.

It's pretty frustrating watching Sneijder and Robben waste attacks by attempting outrageous lofted through balls and top corner curlers respectively all the time.

i thought they were playing really well with that lineup before the tournament? but they did look exactly like what you're describing in the last three games.

That has to be the best individual performance of the tournament so far from Ronaldo (not that the whole team weren't also excellent), and of course it was absolutely suicidal to give Ronaldo all that space by the Dutch but he was nonetheless a joy to watch. Great moment when he could of shot first time for his second goal but instead turned inside leaving van der Wiel flat on his backside.

Can Andy Townsend please just go and play golf in Marbella for the rest of his life? I surely can't have been the only person who cringed when he said the only thing van Bommel does is foul? This coming from a completely nondescript footballer who only won an international cap for Ireland because he knew he was never close to being good enough for even the England team. It's quite clear after tonight why van Bommel is important to the Dutch team as it was left entirely up to de Jong to try and deal with the barrages of Portuguese attacks all on his own because the other Dutch midfielders don't offer any sort of defensive duties.

van Bommel is a very good player. He stamps down his authority in matches and has a killer pass.

That's what I thought, too.

Haven't missed a game of the tournament so far (historically not a soccer fan, btw) and every game has been super entertaining. I've actually come to dislike Ronaldo quite a bit from watching Portugal's games because of his demeanor. How surprised is everyone that Russia got knocked out?

Also, which team looks the strongest to you guys? I think Germany looked really good (despite a couple low points) during the group stage, but I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

The Dutch just couldn't handle Ronaldo at all. He was absolutely awesome last night, only thing off about him was his finishing, he should've scored about 8 goals last night.

Such a wtf moment.

Reminds me of a black faced version of the mask used by Ryan Gosling in Drive

Super Mario

Ridiculous.

On another note... Croatia

why always me indeed