2014 World Cup

France, Belgium and to an extent the Netherlands have been really surprising in how little urgency they've shown given the stakes. There's not really a team in the semifinals that you'd say is a clear-cut winner, at least based on the quarterfinals.

 

Robben has been unreal.

 

Interesting move by the Dutch to change keepers for the shootout. Not sure I've seen that before

 

So if this works, it's genius. But it had better work.

Miracle of Castel di Sangro comes to mind ...

 

Los Ticos are living a charmed life. There have been at least three Dutch shots that I still have no idea how they didn't go in.

They've reached this point thanks to a Tim Howardesque performance by their keeper and a large helping of good fortune.

 

All that said, arriba Ticos!

 

Just what I was thinking.

 

Four very un-Dutch penalties so far.

 

A just result.

 

The chalk bracket is definitely winning this year's World Cup office pool up to this point. I have a Brazil-Netherlands final with Brazil winning, but with no Neymar, that's looking shaky.

 

Not sure how to handicap the semis. Brazil finally looked like the real Brazil against Colombia, but without Neymar I don't think they can hang with Germany. I have not been impressed with Argentina at all, but they do have Messi playing at a high level and they've been winning. The Netherlands seems to me to be the more talented team of the two, but they've let two inferior teams just hang around and hang around in the knockout games before getting it done late.