Spain v Netherlands

I'm flying down to Fortaleza tomorrow morning, so I'll make it quick.  This was one of the most entertaining one-sided games I've seen in a while.  The Dutch coach, van Gaal, got his tactics spot on to disrupt Spain's oppressive passing game.  The Dutch played physical early on, and kept harassing Xavi and Iniesta to prevent them from getting into rhythm.  As a result, Costa looked isolated; when a Spanish striker is playing with his back to goal most of the game you know there's a problem.

Robben and van Persie were absolutely clinical on the break.  Van Persie's precisely weighted header off a beautiful pass from the left wing was phenomenal, and Robben showed off breakaway speed to make Ramos look like a rec league defender with a 3/4 field sprint and pick up a (selfish) goal.  When Robben is on form, he is unstoppable, so if he catches fire right now the Dutch could win the group and avoid Brazil in the first round of the knockout stage.

Spain needs to think about what went wrong for them here.  They were bright at times, but they did a very poor job attacking Netherland's relatively weak flanks.  They need to beat both Chile and Australia now, which they should be capable of, so they're not in any danger yet.

Man of the Match: Robben.  Easy choice, but Ron Vlaar had a surprisingly dominant performance and was able to stifle Costa, and later Torres.