Soccer 2014
The World Cup
10 Times Champions league Winner
A trio of goals in extra time has given Real Madrid a 4-1 win over AtlĂŠtico Madrid in the Champions League final. AtlĂŠtico's Diego Godin opened the scoring in the first half, before Sergio Ramos equalized with an incredible stoppage time head Exhausted after a long game and long season, AtlĂŠtico tried to hold strong defensively, but Gareth Bale's header gave Real Madrid the lead in the second half of extra time. Madrid rol ed on from there, padding their lead with goals form Marcelo and a penalty kick from Cristiano Ronaldo.
The World Cup
Louis van Gaal, one of the game's greatest coaches, was criticized before the World Cup for being too defensive for a nation that loves attacking play.
His decision to field five defenders against Spain though, proved a masterstroke. His team thrashed the defending world champions 5-1 Friday with a clinical display of counterattacking football that had Spain chasing shadows at the end as Dutch fans roared ''Ole!'' each time their team passed the ball. ''If you see how he prepared us, and how he predicted the game would go, and you see how it went - unbelievable,'' said Robin van Persie whose stunning header to equalize just before half time turned the tide of the match and lit up social media accounts around the world. ''It went exactly as the entire technical staff predicted.'' It was Spain's worst loss in the tournament since a 6-1 defeat to Brazil in 1950. In the day's other matches, Chile beat Australia 3-1, leaving Spain at the bottom of Group B. In Group A, Mexico edged Cameroon 1-0 on a 61st-minute goal by Oribe Peralta to take second spot behind Brazil. But it was the Dutch performance that shocked even casual fans on the second day of World Cup, showing why Manchester United was so keen to sign Van Gaal to rebuild the storied club. He starts work at Old Trafford when the Netherlands leave Brazil. If they keep playing this way, he could keep Manchester fans waiting until mid-July. The 62-year-old Dutchman has a history of getting the best out of teams and blending youth with experience, taking Ajax to the Champions League title in 1995. He is bidding to make the Netherlands world champions for the first time after losing three finals - including four years ago when Andres Iniesta's extra-time goal won it for Spain. It wasn't shocking for the Dutch to get revenge for that loss, but the way they demolished Spain - the dominant world football power since 2008 - sent a signal that the run of this generation of Spanish stars may be coming to an end.
Mexico, on the brink of its greatest achievement at a World Cup outside its own country, broke down in the final three minutes of regulation, and again in stoppage time, falling to a crushing 2-1 defeat to the Netherlands in the Round of 16. The Mexicans dominated the match for much of the first half and the beginning of the second, taking the lead in the 48th minute on Giovani dos Santos’s blistering left-footed strike. The Netherlands pushed forward in the second half, looking for an equalizer, but Guillermo Ochoa displayed some more outstanding goalkeeping, especially when he deflected a point-blank volley off the goal line to preserve the lead. But with the quarterfinals tantalizingly close, it was all ripped away from Mexico, starting with Wesley Sneijder’s tying goal in the 88th minute. Sneijder stepped up to hammer home a shot from the top of the penalty area after a Dutch corner kick was knocked back to him. Then, in the 94th minute of a grueling game in scorching conditions, Arjen Robben dribbled artfully near the Mexico goal and was tripped in the penalty area by Rafael Márquez. Klaas jan Huntelaar buried the penalty kick to give the Netherlands the lead and, a minute later, hand Mexico its sixth straight elimination in the Round of 16. The Netherlands advances to face Costa Rica in the quarterfinals on Saturday.
Credit: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/dutch-level-1-1-spain-195447609--sow.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/29/sports/worldcup/world-cup-netherlands-vs-mexico.html?_r=0
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