Before last nights semi final most experts I talked to seemed to be in agreement – Germany are the favorites but Brazil have got the home backing, there wont be many goals and it will be close. Seemed reasonable at the time and a statement most people would agree with. Then the Germans go on and score four goals in six minutes and win the match 7-1 and if anything it could have been even worse for the Brazilians! So what went wrong? Was it just an unbelievable performance from Germany or was it it just total capitulation from Brazil? The correct answer is that it was a bit of both.

If you don’t follow football and you would have seen the talk about Neymar before the match you might have thought that he had passed away. David Luiz, who took the armband from the suspended Thiago Silva, held up a Neymar shirt during the national anthems. It just seems incredibly over the top and Brazil’s focus was way too much on them missing Neymar and how difficult that made things for them. Of course missing the semi final in your home country and missing the chance to become a national hero is devastating for him but things got out of hand.

With Thiago Silva also missing it was the responsibility of David Luiz took take charge of the defense and keep it disciplined. Luiz keeping defensive discipline? This is a player who plays more as midfielder than a defender when he’s in the centre back position. Constantly out of position, taking stupid forward runs and losing his player. Then of course you have Marcelo at left back who also needs someone to remind that he also has to defend and when Silva is gone there is no one to do that.

When Germany scored their third goal (or even the second one) Brazil needed to regroup and take a few minutes to regain their shape and figure out what was going wrong. Instead their lack of discipline showed up again and they try too push men forward when the Germans have already punished them three times for that exact reason. This is both the responsibility of the captain and of the manager.

Having said that I wont take anything from the fantastic Germans. They were incredibly ruthless and despite having secured the game after thirty minutes there was never a sense of carelessness or losing concentration. Argentina and the Netherlands must be dreading the prospect of facing them in the final. I mentioned on this blog yesterday that Toni Kroos has been one of the most surprising players at this World Cup and he showed yesterday how far he has come with the national team scoring two goals and making one assist bringing his assist tally to four in the tournament. Miroslav Klose of course also became the top goalscorer in World Cup history surpassing the Brazilian Ronaldo, a phenomenal record. One player who already has his eyes on bettering that is Thomas Muller who has now scored 10 World Cup goals and he has at least two more left if stays clear of injuries.

Taking the focus of last nights match lets take a look at the second semi final, which is a big one between to football powerhouses Argentina and the Netherlands. Both teams face selection dilemmas for tonight’s match. Angel Di Maria will miss the match for Argentina but Sergio Aguero has been declared fit and will almost certainly start for the South Americans. Although Aguero is a fantastic player he was not nearly up to his usual standards in the opening matches of the tournament. Robin van Persie is a doubt for the Dutch with a stomach problem and we will only now tonight if he will play. I think it would take something more than a stomach problem for van Persie to miss this match so I think he will in all probability at least play a part in the match. Concrete Ron Vlaar is also a doubt but Nigel de Jong looks like he will be fit for the match having missed the match against Costa Rica.

The match has been branded as duel between Arjen Robben and Lionel Messi who both have had fine tournaments. I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that the match will be tighter than last nights match. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Louis van Gaal spring a tactical surprise to try and neutralize Messi but the only way the Argentine’s will go through to the final is if Aguero manages to play to his true potential to make up for the loss of Di Maria. If I were a betting man I would put my money on the Netherlands who are more likely to go through and make it an unprecedented all European World Cup final in South America.