I haven't been following a lot of soccer for the last couple of years. Soccer, football, okay whatever you want to call it. Especially the normal competition in the country hasn't been that high of a quality and the attitude of a lot of players does not contribute to it at all.
So with the whole qualifications of the last year for the World Cup in Qatar hasn't been that high on my radar as well. And with the whole discussion about the human rights of the workers who built the stadiums there, it all didn't feel like the coolest thing to follow.
I didn't watch any matches of the world championship and I also had no ide of what is going on. But yesterday I was on the couch doing literally nothing, no netflix attracting me and I decided to watch one of the games from the Dutch team against Argentinia in the quarter finals. And that was a big entertaining game to watch, and I don't regret spending my time on that for a second.
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The first half was as expected I would say. You could feel the Argentinians taking over the game with as a result scoring 2 goals which seems more than valid with how the dutch team was playing with literally zero shots at goal.
Coming from the world of volleybal, I like sport with high success rates and where you feel one team is taking over and with soccer this is never really the case. Unless you are behind with two goals and hanging on to a a small thread a decide to fight back.
And that is exactly what the Dutch team did.
At some point in the second half the game ignited and the Dutch players started to show their fighting spirit. With multiple fights adding fuel to the fire actually this was a really entertaining half to watch.
With dudes shooting on te dug out people got mad and again I wondered how this sport can be so popular when the rules and giving away yellow cards are so dependent on the view of 1 referee. Why not use the video ref more? But that is another discussion.
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As said it ignited, the Dutch team found their vibe and went into the extra time with 2-2 on the scoreboard which felt deserved after the amount of work that they had put in.
But from the start of the extra time again the Dutch team fell asleep again and as we all know the Dutchies aren't that good in taking penalties. As expected, they didn't win.
Emotions were high and the sportivity of literally all players was far to be seen as everyone showed their true colours.
I think I saw enough football for the next couple of years again, because how big this was a thriller...Well, we won't be seeing that in a long time again.
Thanks World cup...you were great!