World Cup: Quarter final take aways

Your best player must turn up, freshen after second round and  hell, it is still knockout so no secret weapons

Best players must turn up.

Forget about criticism of teams relying on one player. In fact, a team needs its best player to turn up for the party. If your best player is pocketed you need plan B by introducing an impact player. Otherwise you will be in the next plane home.
France, Belgium and Colombia have packed their bags for exactly the same reasons.

PAUL POGBA (France)
The Juventus midfielder had been dictating play for France until confronted by the German machine. Suddenly ideas disappeared in the face of a powerful combination of Bastian Schweinsteiger and Sami Khedira.
Pogba’s attitude did not help matters because it appeared he felt like his teammates were not doing enough. In truth, he ought to have fought his way into the game.
Inexplicably, Didier Deschamps decided to start with Antoine Griezmann. It meant, France could not shift through the gears. There was no change of tempo even when Giroud came in later in the game. Griezmann has been fantastic coming of the bench helping to crank up the pace.

FREDY GUARIN (Colombia)
The Inter Milan man was supposed to make things happen against Brazil. It required some inventiveness on his part with Carlos Sanchez to make James Rodriguez tick.
Guarin really put in a good shift but the fact most of his passes were lateral in nature and not probing enough made Brazil’s defensive work bearable. From the few instances they passed directly or shifted it to Juan Cuadrado and the back it left Brazil at sixes and sevens.

EDEN HAZARD (Belgium)
It was Hazard’s worst performance the Mundial started here. The Chelsea star had five forward passes into the box but all of them were not complete. From the heat map, it is shocking how Hazard made backward passes which though successful could not influence Belgium’s attacking play.
This match was too much to ask of Divock Origi and coach Marc Wilmots’ introduction of Romelu Lukaku was more of closing the stable long after the horse had bolted.

ROBIN VAN PERSIE (Netherlands)
Part of the reason The Netherlands battle with Costa Rica dragged on into extra-time and penalties is because RVP was not in his element. In fact, the Netherlands survived on Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben putting in extra work to cover for their subdued leader. It took also Louis Van Gaal’s mind games to shake off Costa Rica by introducing Tim Krul in place of Jasper Cillessen for the penalty shootout. It rattled the Central Americans.

Freshening up after second round matches is challenging
The second round matches have proved by far the most entertaining of the knockout phase. Five of the eight second round matches went into extra-time with two of them decided via penalties. France versus Germany was a very flat affair. No side attempted to up the tempo. Germany who took the lead early were content to fly their machine on autopilot. Nothing spectacular. Fans waited in vain for France’s response.
Belgium were stale after the jaw dropping battle with the US. Surprisingly, it was the Argentines who were also stretched by Switzerland into extra time that looked geared up for a fight.

No secret weapons. It is a knockout!
Belgium coach Marc Wilmots is very guilty here. The Argentina clash was a big one. He needed to have Romelu Lukaku on the pitch from the start. Wilmots also started with Kevin Mirallas instead of Dries Mertens. Both players are deadly up front but Mertens is intense. Lukaku should have been able to fight it out with experienced Pablo Zabaleta, Ezzequiel Garay, and Martin Demichelis. Perhaps Wilmots wanted Lukaku as the ace card. It is a gamble that easily backfires at this stage and against such big team as Argentina. Unless it is mind games weapon as Louis Van Gal’s use of Tim Krul for penalties against Costa Rica.