Colombia and Brazil, two nations that border one another, faced off today in an epic South American showdown. Brazil, a nation that has won the World Cup five times, more than any other nation, needed to beat Colombia to reach the the semi-finals.
Colombia, a nation that has not seen a World Cup in 16 years and has never even been to the quarterfinals needed to beat a team that most recently won the World Cup in 2002. They’ve danced their whole way here, showing the world what this team, without their star Falcao, can do. James Rodriguez has been there breakout star and would need to shine in this game to stand a chance.
Brazil and Colombia are two teams that have no vicious backstory or drama from the past. They’ve played only friendlies against each other, outside of qualifiers, seeing as how Colombia does not have a rich history at the World Cup. That would change after this game.
It was an ugly, brutal, hard fought battle with dirty plays and bad refereeing. It led to injuries that will devastate teams to come. Many say that the blame could be put on the referee for letting the game get out of control. Whatever the reason, it took away from what should have been a great game.
The game started with even possession, both teams struggling to keep possession. It wouldn’t stay that way, with a team scoring within the first 10 minutes. It was Brazil to come up with the first goal of the game.
It came off of a corner kick, one of many goals that Brazil got off of a set piece. Neymar was the man to take it and his shot went over about five Colombian defenders. On its way down, Brazilian’s capital, Thiago Silva connected with it and slid it right into the goal.
It was the first time in the tournament that Colombia had been trailing and the first game they didn’t score first in. It was a fair goal, but the rest of the half turned into an ugly battle with Fernandinho charging the way.
Within the first 15 minutes, Fernandinho was behind at least two fouls, one for Juan Cuadrado and one on James Rodriguez. The one on Cuadrado had contact with both players, a bit more coming from Fernandinho.
The one on Rodriguez would have ended in a yellow card for Fernandinho with other referees, with him tackling James like he was playing American Football. Colombia did get possession, but Fernandinho was allowed to walk free.
This gave him a sort of permission to continue with the physical play and things would eventually get uglier. Brazil had more opportunities, one coming at the 19th minute.
It was Hulk who made a quick pass to Neymar, who passed it back to Hulk who took the shot. Ospina punched it out to traffic and Oscar was there to find the ball. His attempt was saved by Ospina who was able to get hold of the ball that time and saved Colombia from going down 2-0.
Brazil continued with their objective, stop James and play physical. Colombia tried to get some offense going, but the Brazilian defense was stiffling the Colombians, who have played a relatively clean World Cup.
Hulk had another opportunity eight minutes later when Marcelo got a deflection and passed it to Hulk. He replicated his first shot and Ospina was able to control this one a bit better than the first one.
Colombia had a great opportunity at the 38th minute when they were awarded a free kick off of a foul by Thiago Silva. James was the man to take it, but it floated in the air for too long and Julio Cesar was able to save it.
This was followed by another missed opportunity from Hulk, Neymar taking a free kick but letting it fly over the crossbar, Zuniga fouling both Neymar and Hulk and not receiving any yellow cards when he probably should have, and James getting taken out by Fernandinho once again with no repercussions for him either.
Both teams executed what needed to be done to win this game, stop the number 10’s. Neymar and James were marked men for a majority of the first half and were not taken care of by the referee.
The referee was missing big fouls that should have been called on both sides. Not one yellow was shown the entire first half, yet it was a half filled with many fouls that the referee either ignored or felt did not warrant carding.
It was a sloppy first half and would set the tone going into the second half. The second half started with quite a few free kicks that the referee did not call in the first half. None of them amounted to much for either team.
Colombia had a good run at the 59th minute that started with Cuadrado passing to Teófilo Gutiérrez who then made a pass towards the edge of the box. Pablo Armero was able to get to it before it went out of bounds, making a high pass to James.
James was waiting right outside of the box, thrusted his chest into the ball for a quick trap and passed it to Fredy Guarín. Unfortunately for Guarín, he wasn’t able to recreate the James volley, and his attempt went high over the goal.
This was a good sign for Colombia, as they were starting to look like the team we had seen in their previous games. It looked like Colombia evened the score at the 65th minute when James Rodriguez took a free kick.
However, the flags went up while he took the shot, although no whistle was blown. Colombia played on and althuogh Guarín and Colombian capitan Mario Yepes were ahead of the Brazilian defense when the shot was taken, the ball hit David Luiz first.
According to FIFA, the rule on offside is “It is not an offence in itself to be in an offside position”.
After the ball deflected off of David Luiz’s hip, Yepes found the ball and Julio Cesar tried to grab it but Yepes shot it off before and it went into the goal. Since there was no way to question the offside call, the goal was disallowed.
Colombia’s frustration would continue four minutes later when James was given a yellow and Brazil was given a free kick. David Luiz was the man to take it and shot it over the wall and straight into the net, past Ospina.
Colombia was down 2-0 at the 70th minute when they could have had a tie if things went their way. They would need to pull it together fast if they wanted a chance.
Colombia came close at the 78th minute when they strung together a nice run. James got the ball and made a pass to Carlos Bacca. He was about to take his shot, but Julio Cesar made a questionable foul that denied Bacca his goal.
Colombia was awarded a penalty and Julio Cesar was given a yellow card, although there was discussion that he could have been given a straight red card for the foul.
James was the man to take the penalty for Colombia and placed it in with ease for his 6th goal of the tournament. After taking his shot, a huge bug landed on his left arm, something of a good luck charm perhaps.
The biggest highlight of the remainder of the game was Neymar’s injury at the 88th minute when Zuniga’s knee connected with his back and sent him down. He would not be able to play for the remainder of the game and will be out for the rest of the World Cup.
Once again, the referee missed his mark and purhaps should have given the foul for Zuniga. It looked like they were both going for the ball, with Zuniga jumping in the air, Neymar stopped in front of him and Zuniga’s knee landed in his back while Zuniga was in the air.
Colombia had a chance. and seemed to take control of the game after this, giving themselves some promising chances. They looked like they had a real chance, but were unable to convert to send it to overtime.
Brazil kept their lead and booked a date with Germany on July 8th. Colombia’s Cinderella run is now over and what a ride it has been for Los Cafeteros.
They went to their first quarterfinal ever, had the second youngest player to score six goals at a World Cup (Pele is the youngest at age 17), the oldest player to play in a World Cup, Faryd Mondragón and won the hearts of the Colombians too.
It was a memerable run for the Colombian squad and all without their star player, Falcao. Who knows what they’ll be able to do in four years time with Falcao and James hopefully playing together.
The 2014 World Cup 