^ costa rica was one of my biggest surprise of this world cup.
every world cup is interesting and amazing for different reasons, but this years a lot of big important national team, with big names and reputation, went home first (spain, italy, portugal, england), and smaller less famous nation proved their talent (mexico, costa rica, and also usa showed us that they improved their gameplay too for example). I enjoyed watching costa rica actually, it was nice.

too much scared for today game anyway. it should be easier for germany to win over france, that for brazil or columbia to beat the other. it will be the most intense game I suppose. can't wait any longer. both team has great players, good teams and talented stars (neymar and rodriguez. which did the same number of shoot and they do have almost the same number of goals. still unsure if scolari will make neymar play for the whole gameplay, I would be more careful even if doctors say he's fine. he did suffer the last match, they need to keep it at his best ugh). maybe it will be another game where both team will fight until the very last minute.

The whole world has been surprised lol, it's the biggest performance and surprise in this World Cup. They finished 1st in the "group of death", literally no one ever expected that and now they are even in quarter finals!

That being said I think they will lose against Netherlands. Netherlands are scary in this WC. Yes they didn't destroy Mexico but Mexico was really good. I think they will win more easily against Costa Rica.

Well if Costa Rica wins this then... wow... wow... Would become one of the biggest performance in the history of WC I think (it already is kind of ^^ will be remembered in th history).

About Brazil we will see, one part of me wants them to win, another part is for Colombia... I just hope the game will be great.

But first, THE game!!! France-Germany, GOGOGO FRANCE!  .dance. .hora.

The last tournements (world and europe cups) I had been pretty sure that France couldn't beat us. But this time. As a german fan I am really worried about this game. Hope Germany will win, of course  .clap. 

My prediction for Brasil - Columbia...? Don't know. I think Columbia will make it - unless Brasil will play much better than the last games.

I am worried too ^^

Damn I think a thunderstorm is coming here, it gets darker and darker and we have a thunderstorm alert for today so... I hope it will wait until the game is over  :freeze:  

Hope you can watch the full game!   

Only a few minutes left. Good luck to both teams. May the best win...

Meh........ T_T

Looks like we will have a few chances to score, Germany's defense isn't great at all today! But Benzema seems in a bad day too... I think we can at least score 1 goal but we need to be more efficient. Wake up Benz' please... or at least give the ball and don't shoot on Neuer, he is laughing at you -_-

On a good note, the thunderstorm is gone, it was a bit loud but could watch the game ofr now ^^

quite sad france lost.
I haven't got many doubts on germany's win actually, but seeing players cry because they truly hoped and believed they will win always breaks my heart ahah. france wasn't playing bad neither, but germany has one amazing team (and what a goalkeeper)

now everything is brazil - columbia and everything hurts. that match will kill me

Thank you, Manuel Neuer.

That was a close one. I'm happy that we won but after THIS performance I feel a bit bad for the french. They fought really hard.

Now I'm curious who will be our opponent in the semifinals.

.whiteflag. .whiteflag.

I'm sad and disappointed, the game was really close and we had our chances, too bad we took a goal so fast... And then our attack failed us (again). We only scored 1 goal in out last 3 games (well 2 if you count the nigerian own goal), and that is not good enough to go to a world cup semi-final!!

Benzema I think had 3-4 chances (not HUUUUGE chances but he had chances) but didn't make it, at this level a top scorer MUST score once at least. But of course it's not his fault if we lost, it's the whole team.

Germany was really beatable today... We should have tried even more at some point, make the game go crazy but we didn't.

Well it's like that. Overall we did a good World Cup and the semi-final wasn't that far. But it's frustrating to lose 0-1 and be so close. The good point is that our dark era seems gone, we have good players and they are young too and it seems we have a great team spirit again. In 2 years we host the European championship so hopefully this generation can be even better!

Good luck Germany for the rest of the tourney.

Even though it was a really close game, my prediction on France vs Germany was wrong... I thought for sure France would win. 

On the other hand, Brazil won this game but they lost a couple of key people. Neymar probably won't play on this world cup anymore due to fracture. Silva won't play on the next game against Germany due to yellow cards (That was a bit random how he charged the ball when the goalie about to kick it). Tough luck Brazil =/

The referee was really bad (for both teams)...

Brazil lost Neymar and Thiago Silva, honestly I think Germany will beat them. Columbia did ok but taking such a goal so fast... It was like France, it hurt them a lot.

Tomorrow I predict an "easy" win for Netherlands and for the other game... hum... difficult to say! Let's say Belgium so I can cheer for our neighbors and so we got 3 European teams left ^^ Argentina is basically Messi + Di Maria, they have a lot of weaknesses. If Belgium can play a good game and be more efficient they should win it. Argentina doesn't have Tim Howard ^^

I think Belgium will make it. But for the other one... I have a feeling that Netherlands will be somewhat surprised, don't know why^^

Well, here are my impressions of the last 3 games of the Round of 8... A little bit disappointed.

2/3 games of this round were some kind of... boring, I mean, for example, Germany-France, the goal was on the min 14: at the beginning of the game, so major happening of the match, were 8, and 6 of them were players substitutions... And there it was only 3 shots to goal...

And in the other hand, we had Argentina-Belgium:
1 Goal - Pipita Higuaín, 8'
That say's everything.

But, Brazil-Colombia was a good match, I saw it with my friends, eating hamburguer, chili and a beer. Too bad the referee, the match felt like if there it wasn't a referee... too much faults, and not a single card on them...

Expectations for the next match: Despite of Costa Rica is from the Concacaf's area (and El Salvador too), I think Netherlands will win the match, technically is a match of experience, Costa Rica is starting on the soccer planet, Netherlands has so many year's of advantages and enough exp to win against a little team as Costa Rica.

Fun facts but would not be useful in life
If Netherlands wins against Costa Rica, the next round (Semi-finals) will have 50% American teams, and 50% European teams.
It would be an America vs Europe round

Belgium's game felt like the France-Germany game to be honest. A bit sad.

Now Netherlands should win "easily" unless Costa Rica can create another huge surprise.

HaRuRiNaMaMiToMo wrote:Belgium's game felt like the France-Germany game to be honest. A bit sad.

Now Netherlands should win "easily" unless Costa Rica can create another huge surprise.

Maybe, Costa Rica's way to play is depending of Netherlands.

When CR where in the death group, they only waited their adversary in their zone, they played defensively, but against greece, they had to play different, 'cause in this time, greece was the one that played defensively, so CR had to attack and they didn't know what to do, they where used to playe defensively.

But Netherlands will play like Italy or Uruguay, attacking, so CR it's going to play like they did it in the Death Group

netherlands - costa rica match was so meh. if felt bad to see cr to leave like this seeing how netherlands is playing their latest games but I think they will be defeated by argentina. it seems difficult for them to reach the top this year too

anyway, can I rant over brazil for the rest of the world cup? ugh how far are we from brazil germany ugh ugh ugh. willian was neymar's replacement and he's suffering an injury from a training session? that's totally bad luck.
and I still totally feel bad for neymar. he's young, he will have other chances to prove his talent but still... it was his first world cup in his country. hope his team wil be all fired up and try their best playing at their 100% for their buddy

reilachii wrote:netherlands - costa rica match was so meh. if felt bad to see cr to leave like this seeing how netherlands is playing their latest games but I think they will be defeated by argentina. it seems difficult for them to reach the top this year too

Hum, are you forgetting that Netherlands hit 3 times woodwork yesterday? ^^ And had like 2-3 huge chances? It seems you are saying they played bad but with just a little more "luck", they win this easily 2-0 or 3-0.

Congratulations Costa Rica for that WC but in the end they just defended with 9 players and had I think 1-2 chances in 120 minutes. Then they got "Kruled" ^^ (the GK subbed at the last second, that was brilliant to be honest...). Even if a lot of people love the underdog and to cheer for the small country, that was really not enough this time and it would have been sad to see them go to the semis. But again it's a small country and they made history, congrats to them!

My prediction for the semis:
BRA-GER: Germany wins. I don't see how Brazil could win against them without Thiago Silva and Neymar honestly. But who knows, motivation can sometimes do miracles.
ARG-NED: Netherlands wins. Should be close but unlike Belgium or Switzerland they have a real good attack, fast and experienced. if RVP, Sneijder and Robben are in a good day I don't see how Argentina could win. Unless Messi, Higuain, Di Maria are in a great day too xD

Of course it will be close, not saying a team will win 4-0. We will probably get score like 2-1 or something.

HaRuRiNaMaMiToMo wrote:

reilachii wrote:netherlands - costa rica match was so meh. if felt bad to see cr to leave like this seeing how netherlands is playing their latest games but I think they will be defeated by argentina. it seems difficult for them to reach the top this year too

Hum, are you forgetting that Netherlands hit 3 times woodwork yesterday? ^^ And had like 2-3 huge chances? It seems you are saying they played bad but with just a little more "luck", they win this easily 2-0 or 3-0.

it was still the most boring quarter of final lol. netherland proved they can do better, and costa rica had their own chances. maybe they were equally strong yesterday, but I actually didn't saw anything until the very last minutes of regular time. to me, a world champion team can not show their best just in the extra time, it sounds absurd. why did you not do it before? meh, just meh. I always cheered for netherland, but they are not a world cup champion team atm.
it seemed like costa rica deserved to win better than them in my opinion. they will have big troubles with argentina (who I totally see in the final) if they keep wondering around for most of the time as they did in the last matches. if messi will wake up early and higuain is in good shape, it'll be fun

Well I do not agree ^^ First, it's rarely a good game when one team decides to decide with 9 or even 10 players all game long, you can be an amazing team but it's very hard to play against. Second, Netherlands had great chances in regular time, I think 2 woodworks and 1-2 other chances. Like I said with a bit more "luck" they win this in regular time no problem, you cannot simply look at the final score and say they played bad.

t seemed like costa rica deserved to win better than them in my opinion.

Uh what? o_O CR had like 1-2 real chances at most in regular time and played full defense all the time. For you they deserved the win more? O_O

Well it's your opinion and I respect it but even if you think Netherlands played bad I really don't see how Costa Rica deserves the win more, they literally did nothing the whole game to get the win ^^

HaRuRiNaMaMiToMo wrote:

t seemed like costa rica deserved to win better than them in my opinion.

Uh what? o_O CR had like 1-2 real chances at most in regular time and played full defense all the time. For you they deserved the win more? O_O

Well it's your opinion and I respect it but even if you think Netherlands played bad I really don't see how Costa Rica deserves the win more, they literally did nothing the whole game to get the win ^^

well they did if you see how the teams played all their matches :\
i don't know. starting all fired up, wanting some kind of revenge from 4 years ago, first goal was a masterpiece and seems all scaring and powerfull while keeping playing while showing nothing more is pretty delusional if we're talking about netherlands (team that has great players and use them just a few time). other teams were/are more enjoyable (?) to watch I suppose. costa rica proved everyone opinions about them were wrong, but netherlands are playing basic football.
as I said, I can't see them in final like this

HaRuRiNaMaMiToMo wrote:

reilachii wrote:netherlands - costa rica match was so meh. if felt bad to see cr to leave like this seeing how netherlands is playing their latest games but I think they will be defeated by argentina. it seems difficult for them to reach the top this year too

Hum, are you forgetting that Netherlands hit 3 times woodwork yesterday? ^^ And had like 2-3 huge chances? It seems you are saying they played bad but with just a little more "luck", they win this easily 2-0 or 3-0.

Congratulations Costa Rica for that WC but in the end they just defended with 9 players and had I think 1-2 chances in 120 minutes. Then they got "Kruled" ^^ (the GK subbed at the last second, that was brilliant to be honest...). Even if a lot of people love the underdog and to cheer for the small country, that was really not enough this time and it would have been sad to see them go to the semis. But again it's a small country and they made history, congrats to them!

My prediction for the semis:
BRA-GER: Germany wins. I don't see how Brazil could win against them without Thiago Silva and Neymar honestly. But who knows, motivation can sometimes do miracles.
ARG-NED: Netherlands wins. Should be close but unlike Belgium or Switzerland they have a real good attack, fast and experienced. if RVP, Sneijder and Robben are in a good day I don't see how Argentina could win. Unless Messi, Higuain, Di Maria are in a great day too xD

Of course it will be close, not saying a team will win 4-0. We will probably get score like 2-1 or something.

Actually, also it was a little bit boring, the interesting part was on the extra time, yeah, CR and NL both had chances, but 2 or 3 in 90 mins it's not so much...

Also, CR had chances (i'm not saying CR deserved it... but I wanted CR to win) it wasnt a lot too but it had chances, also both teams didn't had so much chances.

Whatever, is like I said before, defensively is the best style for CR, it worked when they were at the Death group.


______________
For my predictions, don't know... really don't know...
Maybe the finalist are gonna be Brasil and Argentina...
European teams are feeling the pressure of being on american lands, but these match are gonna be interesting.

5 - 0 Germany, 30 minutes in. Nuff said. LOL

I think I'm dreaming... unbelievable...  .stars.

My gawd. LOL I stopped watching it.  .wew.

lol yeah... I mean this is so unreal... It's like something that is impossible but it happens in a world cup semi-finale. Can't believe it.

Sad for Brazil and all the people of course but the way they played and defended it's really bad...

If they don't play better this could get even worse. I think they are dead psychologically already, the question is will they play a normal game now to save their honor or will this pathetic display continue :/

On a side note, makes me a bit prouder about France and our 0-1 loss only, at least we played normally and give it our best shot.