After respectively seeing off the threats of Slovakia and Chile in the second round, it will be Bert Van Marwijk’s Netherlands and Dunga’s Brazil that will contest the first of the World Cup quarter-final ties – and what a tie it promises to be.
With just three FIFA world ranking places between them (Brazil top and the Netherlands in 4th) it would appear, on paper at least, that we have a potential feast of technically superior football on the cards.
However, the Dutch come into the game off the back of several fairly underwhelming, pragmatic Group E performances and have yet to really live up to the ‘totaal voetbal‘ philosophy that all Oranje World Cup squads are supposed to intrinsically embody.
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Van Marwijk says: "We are here for one reason. To win the big prize. We have to believe it. Against Brazil, perhaps we might be the underdogs for the first time in South Africa.
“People laughed at us when we said we were capable of winning the World Cup. But you have to show a real mentality, a constant focus. I think we are showing that."
Lively Lambertus, 58, knows the Dutch have never won “the big prize”, though they reached the final in Germany (1974) and Argentina (1978). The Brazilians have won five global crowns on four continents – Asia, North America, Europe and at home – and appear destined to win Africa’s first World Cup.
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