Sunday, June 29, 2014
Kick-off: 9.30 pm Sri Lankan Time.
Estadio Castelao, Fortaleza
Referee: Pedro Proenca (Portugal).
One of the stories of this World Cup has been how the nations that are home to Europe’s great leagues, the ones that generate football’s vast salaries and vaster advertising contracts, have fallen. One by one, the teams that represent the Premier League (England), La Liga (Italy) and Serie A (Spain) have been eliminated. Only the Bundesliga – ie Germany – remains.
The Oranje convincingly won all three of their games en route to winning Group B, setting up a meeting with Group A's runners-up Mexico in the round of 16. El Tri have too exceeded expectations, with Miguel Herrera having extracted the best from his players and ensuring they bounced back from the pre-tournament turmoil of several coaching changes and selection controversies. However, they'll have to do something very special to progress into the quarterfinals.
Mexico should have almost a full complement of players to chose from as they bid to reach the last 16 again.
José Juan Vázquez is suspended after collecting two yellow cards and his likely replacement is Carlos Salcido
Holland can call again on Manchester United's Robin van Persie, who was suspended for the game against Chile, as he continues his bid to become the World Cup's leading scorer.
This promises to be one of the more colourful affairs, certainly in the stands.
Holland's brutal performance in the final of 2010 can be forgotten if the Dutch continue to dazzle and, however well teams from Central America have done, the feeling is they may not be strong enough to make the quarter-finals.
This will also be of interest to Manchester United.
In addition to future manager Luis van Gaal taking charge of Holland, there is the prospect of two United streikers in head-to-head conflict with Van Persie facing Javier Hernández.
Netherlands (3-4-1-2): Jasper Cillessen; Bruno Martins Indi, Ron Vlaar, Stefan de Vrij; Daley Blind, Nigel de Jong, Jonathan de Guzmán, Daryl Janmaat; Wesley Sneijder; Arjen Robben, Robin van Persie.
Mexico (3-5-1-1): Guillermo Ochoa; Héctor Moreno, Rafael Márquez, Francisco 'Maza' Rodríguez; Miguel Layún, Andrés Guardado, Carlos Peña, Héctor Herrera, Paul Aguilar; Giovani dos Santos; Oribe Peralta.
