A Brazil/Holland fan takes in the day's action. Arjen Robben vs Robinho. Wesley Sneijder vs Kaka. Luis Fabiano vs Robin van Persie. Pretty tantalizing for a quarterfinal, no? The Dutch sent Slovakia home in about the same fashion as they won their group stage games - casually. Perhaps there's a sense of urgency to this team, but if so, they hide it better than most athletes. Other than Dirk Kuyt, who doesn't know how to play any other way than running his ass off all game, Holland seemed perfectly content to relax. They created chances, enough that they should've put the game to bed much sooner than they did, but they never seemed that concerned about finishing. van Persie was pretty wasteful in particular, shooting right at the keeper and then wide with a couple of his juicy opportunities. Wesley Sneijder continues to stake his claim to the title of World's Greatest Playmaker, orchestrating most of those meaningful build-ups, playing the key ball to set up Robben's opening goal and then taking matters into his own hand to finish Slovakia in the waning minutes. Between those, Slovakia proved a handful on a few occasions, at one point forcing Dutch keeper Maarten Stekelenburg into 2 big saves within a minute in the second half. But their goal didn't come until an irrelevant penalty kick in the 94th, after which they called the game. The Netherlands are indisputably more threatening when Robben runs opponents ragged on the right; how Brazil will match up with him if Felipe Melo is still hurt will be fascinating to watch. Speaking of Brazil, they won in much the same fashion as Holland. Despite some fairly even play to begin the game, once Maicon put a corner kick right on the head of Juan to open the scoring, they basically cruised the rest of the way. Luis Fabiano's confidence is approximately 1043% higher than it was to begin the tournament, and his dismantling of the Chilean keeper for his 3rd goal of the World Cup was proof. Robinho drove the final stake into the hearts of Chile, and the rout was on. Chile never seemed to get into rhythm today. Despite winning possession, Brazil's players constantly ran right at them and forced a harried approach that resulted in only 1 shot on target. Germany-Argentina and Holland-Brazil will both be barnburners in the quarters. Can't wait.

Spain-Chile began as wide open as promised, and in the early-going, it was Chile who looked looser and bolder. Fernando Torres continued his tentative play, and even Iker Casillas made some basic miscues in the opening 20 minutes. Then everything changed, thanks mostly to one guy. This guy. You know you want me. Boy, David Villa's worth every penny Barcelona spent on him, isn't he? Keeper or no, being able to lash a ball into the net from like 50 yards is impressive, and doing so was a fine way to enter the record books as Spain's all-time scorer at the World Cup. He also showed off his passing acumen to set up Iniesta for the other first half goal. Even on throwaway plays, Villa was zooming down the sidelines, looking twice as fast as anyone else. Meanwhile, Chile could *not* catch a break. Along with their keeper charging halfway to midfield so he could dispossess Torres (only to send the ball right to the feet of Villa), Chile were harshly reduced to 10 men after the card-happy ref dropped a second yellow on Estrada. It looked like he and Torres just got tangled up, but the ref felt otherwise; so it goes. I suppose Chile weren't entirely devoid of breaks, though -- right before half, Ponce took down Xabi Alonso and could've been sent off himself. Apparently, the ref decided he'd done enough damage to Chile for the time being, though, and no card was given. The second half started with a cracking goal that took a deflection to freeze Casillas, and suddenly Chile were in the drivers' seat for second place over the Swiss. Asking Switzerland to get 2 goals is like asking Rush Limbaugh to get a conscience. It's like asking a specific chimpanzee to produce Shakespeare. It's like asking the oil to stop spilling. Some natural laws just can't be broken. And so it was -- after the 75th, Spain seemed happy to help kill the game and by extension punish the Swiss team that embarrassed them. I, for one, am glad they did. Defensive football is a fact of life, but the Swiss take negativity to another stratosphere, and I am glad the World Cup didn't reward it with advancement. So Chile's prize? Brazil. Spain gets no pushover themselves in Portugal, and both games will be among the most wide open of the round of 16. 16 on, 16 out.

The current table:

Chile	6 pts	+2 goal difference
Spain	3 pts	+1 goal difference
Switzerland	3 pts	even goal difference
Honduras	0 pts	-3 goal difference

The possibilities:

	Chile win	Chile/Spain draw	Spain win
Switzerland win	Chile 9 Switzerland 6 Spain 3 Honduras 0	Chile 7 Switzerland 6 Spain 4 Honduras 0	Spain 6 +2 or better Switzerland 6 +1 or better Chile 6 +1 or worse Honduras 0 Chile need to avoid a two goal loss to avoid elimination. If Switzerland win by two, Chile is eliminated. If both are 1 goal wins, it comes to total goals and then a lottery. If Switzerland win by two more goals than Spain, they win the group.
Switzerland/Honduras draw	Chile 9 Switzerland 4 Spain 3 Honduras 1	Chile 7 Spain 4 +1 goal difference Switzerland 4 even goal difference Honduras 1 Spain go through on goal difference.	Spain 6 +2 or better Chile 6 +1 or worse Switzerland 4 Honduras 1 Spain win the group on goal difference
Honduras win	Chile 9 Spain 3 even or worse Switzerland 3 -1 or worse Honduras 3 -2 or better Honduras needs to beat Switzerland by at least two to pass Switzerland. If Hondurans wins by 2 or more, and the combined margin of victory is 5 or more, Honduras advances. If Honduras wins by 1, then if Chile wins by 3 or more, Switzerland advances. If Honduras wins by 2 and Chile wins by 2, it is total goals between the Honduras and Spain. If Honduras wins by 1 and Chile wins by 2, it is total goals between Switzerland and Spain. Otherwise, Spain advances.	Chile 7 Spain 4 Switzerland 3 Honduras 3	Spain 6 +2 or better Chile 6 +1 or worse Switzerland 3 Honduras 3 Spain wins the group on goal difference

Yeah, just multiply this by a LOT. Two main things stand out to me about this match: 1) The ref was a bit card happy, giving out 6 yellows to Chile and 3 yellows plus one red to Switzerland. This is not because the players were brutally fouling each other left and right, though it was a chippy match. Many of these cards were questionable, and it seemed to me that the ref felt the way to keep the game under control was to fling cards around. The sending off of Valon Behrami in the 31st was unwarranted, in my opinion, leaving the Swiss a man down for 2/3 of the match. 2) And this might be mean of me, but the main image in my mind from this game is Alexis Sanchez running to the touchline to celebrate a goal all by himself...for at least 30 seconds...before finally turning to head back to the pitch and realizing his goal had been disallowed since he'd been offside. It's not schadenfreude or anything - quite honestly, there just wasn't much else to take away from this match. Chile had the better of possession, shots and set pieces, and did dominate the match for large parts of it. The Swiss seemed mostly focused on defense, which is fine, but also just not very interesting. It was mentioned by @championsonfox that the Swiss hadn't given up a goal in 551 World Cup minutes, going back to the '94 knockout round where they lost 3-0 to Spain. However, as I pointed out, they weren't even at the '98 or '02 Cups, so while it was still an impressive element of the strong defense strategy, it's not as awe-inspiring when you realize it only involved the group matches of '06 and their first match and a half here. And really, after their surprising win over Spain I expected more of an attack out of them, maybe assuming they would want to prove that result wasn't a lucky fluke or something. But perhaps it was - Chile put on the better show, continuing the impressive run of form from South American sides. I hope this isn't too sappy, but I'll be very glad if Chile advances and does well, considering the horror that country went through with the massive earthquake followed by eleventy-million aftershocks back in February. They're are at the top of their group now, and if Spain and Honduras end in a draw today, Chile moves on to the Round of 16.

Chilean soccer is as pretty as their country. After watching Chile slice and dice their way up the pitch against Honduras, I'm confident of one thing: the Spain-Chile game could, by itself, correct the scoring average of this tournament. The results-oriented crowd continues to strengthen its argument about the scoring problems in South Africa. Brazil put up two goals but looked surprisingly mortal against the plucky North Koreans, and Chile, for all of their guile, creativity, and speed, only managed a single goal against Honduras. That was plenty, though. Other than a brief spell in the middle of the second half, Honduras presented no threat to Chile despite the Chilean 3-3-1-3 formation that begs to be counter-attacked. Chile usually sent 6 forward in attack at full speed, sometimes sent 7, and their 3 defenders didn't seem the most disciplined lot in terms of position. But only twice did I think "Ooh, this break for Honduras could lead to something!" Chile suffered the over-passing disease, also known as Wengeritis, and passed up too many good chances for great ones during the first 75 minutes. Then, down the stretch, they were all too happy to fire long shots as they waited for the clock to tick down. Perhaps they were tired, but they were also lucky that copying the Slovakian late-game plan didn't lead to a similarly painful equalizer. Other than that tendency to ask too-intricate questions in the box, though, Chile were a joy to watch. They ran the give-and-go to great effect, especially in the first half, and their wingers dominated play with speed and decisiveness. Alexis Sanchez was the star of the game. Right before half, for example, he received the ball in the box, stopped on a dime, cut inwards towards goal, and fired a laser. Only a shoulda-been-a-penalty handball from Manuel Figueroa prevented the Chileans from putting up 2 in the first half. Sanchez seemed to be involved in most of the exciting build-up, and this Udinese winger definitely turned heads in the EPL and La Liga. The goal came from one of the weakest finishes but best string of passes in the game. From midfield, the ball was batted back and forth, and within seconds Valdivia sent a through-ball to Isla down the right, who centered beautifully to striker Jean Beausjour. Honduran defender Sergio Mendoza slid in-between Beausjour and the goal, and the ball deflected off him back into Beausjour and bounced into goal. But the sloppy end doesn't detract from the precise lead-up and the goal was well-earned, as was the victory. Spain, you've got a surprisingly tough act to follow, at least in terms of entertainment.