Morocco edge Netherlands on pens in a mad one

The officials let the game become a stop start mess and it only added to the tension because every little thing felt dragged out and every restart killed any flow that either side might have found and then by the time it got to penalties the whole thing had been turned into a pressure cooker where nobody looked comfortable and I am not saying the ref decided it because that would be lazy but he absolutely helped create the kind of ugly atmosphere where one team could just sit deep and wait and the other team could get more and more frustrated and then everyone acts shocked when the shootout is a complete shambles and the players are twitching and second guessing themselves and it all becomes about who can survive the nonsense rather than who can play football properly and the answer tonight was Morocco and the Netherlands should be embarrassed about how little control they had but the officials made the whole thing feel ten times more chaotic than it needed to be
 
the dutch were playing like they had a bus to catch and morocco were loving every second of it, absolute banter when the pens started because you just knew something stupid was coming and then it kept getting stupider and stupider
 
The Netherlands lacked control for long stretches and that caught up with them. Morocco were not spectacular, but they were more organised and more willing to embrace the tension. That usually matters more than flair in a game like this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top