{"id":815,"date":"2006-06-17T11:55:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-17T11:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maddruid.com\/wp\/?p=815"},"modified":"2006-10-09T22:02:43","modified_gmt":"2006-10-09T14:02:43","slug":"813-of-oranje-and-road-to-quarterfinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=815","title":{"rendered":"[813] Of Oranje and road to quarterfinal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"1\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maddruid.com\/Graphics\/reusable\/knvb.gif?w=580\" \/> The Netherlands is set to play Argentina in the final match within Group C. Despite being a high profile game, it&#8217;s a meaningless meeting because both teams have qualified for the second round of the World Cup <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/World%20Cup\">(tag)<\/a>. Therefore, it&#8217;s better for us to look beyond Argentina and see who would be up against the Dutch in the second round instead.<\/p>\n<p>With Portugal beating Iran 2-0 and Mexico managing only a draw against Angola, the Iberian country is currently first in Group D. Next week&#8217;s Portugal-Mexico match will decide the champion of the group and since Mexico fails to impress me, I think Portugal will best Mexico. Back in Group C, after seeing how Argentina played, I don&#8217;t think the odd favors the Dutch. So, second place is a rational expectation for the orange jerseys.<\/p>\n<p>Given that, and that the fact that winner of both groups will play the other group&#8217;s second placed team, I expect the Dutch to meet the Portuguese in the second round.<\/p>\n<p>If everything turns out as I&#8217;m predicting, the Dutch-Portuguese would be an interesting &#8211; and meaningful &#8211; fixture. It might even reignite the Dutch-Portuguese rivaly that nobody has seen since the Dutch first arrived in the Malay Archipelago during the 17th century. And just as how history had unfolded, I believe the Dutch will be victorious. With Deco, Figo, Ronaldo and a few others in the Portuguese squad, it would be tough match nonetheless.<\/p>\n<p>Alrighty. It&#8217;s Czech Republic versus Ghana. Time to pay the idiot&#8217;s box a visit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Netherlands is set to play Argentina in the final match within Group C. Despite being a high profile game, it&#8217;s a meaningless meeting because both teams have qualified for the second round of the World Cup (tag). Therefore, it&#8217;s better for us to look beyond Argentina and see who would be up against the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}