An early chance fell to Holland in this semi-final: an Arjen Robben cross was punched by Muslera only as far as Dirk Kuyt who was 12 yards from goal. But Kuyt failed to keep his powerful shot down. However, this was no indication of how the first-half was to progress: it was a cagey first period with Uruguay preventing the Dutch attacking players from attaining any momentum.
It took an amazing strike from Giovanni van Bronckhorst to break the deadlock. He struck a fierce left-foot shot from well outside the area which found the net via the post. It then continued to be a tense and uneasy encounter with neither side creating clear chances. Holland had most of the possession but seldom looked like they would convert this into anything productive. The score was levelled before half-time by another long-range strike: Diego Forlan struck a curling shot past Maarten Stekelenberg, but a stronger hand from the keeper could have prevented the goal.
For the second-half, Holland replaced Demy de Zeeuw with Rafael van der Vaart and switched to more of a 4-1-4-1 formation in the endeavour to prompt some attacking thrust. The second period promised little though until Diego Forlan demonstrated his mastery of the Jabulani once more, with a decent free-kick which required a diving save from Stekelenberg. This seemed to ignite the Dutch somewhat and almost immediately they contrived a good attack: Robin van Persie held the ball up well and played a neat ball to van der Vaart whose shot was saved ‚ the rebound fell to Robben but his attempt at goal was wild. The lead was regained just minutes later when Wesley Sneijder made space for himself in the box and his deflected shot found the net (with van Persie arguably in an offside position.) The lead was then increased, and the game won, when Kuyt’s cross from the left was headed home adroitly by Robben.
Uruguay pulled a goal back with full-time approaching when Pareira scored following an intelligent short free-kick. This made for a nervy final couple of minutes, but the Dutch held on and will feature in their first World Cup final since 1978 on Sunday.
Holland laboured for periods in this game and struggled to break the shackles of the pressure imposed by Uruguay. The Dutch set up as a secure unit but also field influential individuals in attacking areas. However, their approach contrasts with the more fluid approach of Germany for whom Memut Ozil oscillates between support striker and attacking midfielder, whilst Sami Khedira is slightly more advanced than Bastian Schweinsteiger in central-midfield. The German approach therefore morphs from 4-1-3-2 to 4-2-3-1. Although there is some positional exchange between van Persie, Kuyt and Robben, the Dutch play a fairly rigid 4-2-3-1. It required a substitution (the introduction of van der Vaart) to adopt a different approach in the second period. Could Sunday’s final pit the functional and workmanlike Dutch against the total football of Germany!