The Fantastic Four Story

The World Cup is all set to reach its pinnacle, with four more matches to play to decide who will be crowned the World Champion of football until 2014 when this grand show reaches its most worthy venue Brazil ( as whosoever be the champion of 2010, Brazil will still lead the total World Cup tally with five titles).

                                                                                             

The four teams that reached the last four comprises of three from Europe (Spain, Germany and Netherlands) and one from South America (Uruguay). Each of the quarterfinals had their own story to tell.

The Dream of an all South American Brazil-Argentina finals ended when the youthful Germans destroyed Maradona’s Argentina 4-0 who planned to do a “Franz Beckenbauer” this time and there were broken dreams of Dunga who could have also repeated the Great German’s feat when Brazil lost out to Netherlands 1-2 though taking lead by a goal from Robinho through pure Samba Magic.

In the other two encounters, Spain survived the gusty Paraguayans with a solitary goal from the tournament top scorer David Villa where both the sides missed the penalties awarded to them and millions of African hearts were broken when Ghana, the last African hope lost out on Penalties to Uruguay. Asamoah Gyan had one of the costliest penalty miss in his career where Ghana missed out to be the first African country to play the world cup semifinals.

Le Celeste takes on Clockwork Orange in the first Semi-final in Cape Town.

Uruguay is in the last four after 1970 World Cup where they finished fourth. Despite missing their star striker Luiz Suarez, Uruguay will rely on their inspiring captain Diego Forlan to lead them from front to keep the South American flames burning.

Netherlands are hot favourite for this encounter after knocking of Brazil. Playing the fourth semifinals of their football history, they finished fourth in 1998 losing out the semifinal to Brazil in Penalties. The trio of Robben, Sneijder and Van persie can trouble any defense on their day.

Die Mannschaft takes on La Furia Roja in an all European clash at Durban in the Second Semi final.

This is Germany’s third consecutive semifinal appearance finishing third last time. They will be surely missing their lucky No. 13 Thomas Mueller who misses the semi but this will not dampen their spirits. The Duo of Klose and Podolski will surely give Casillas a run for the money. With such a young team, Germans have all the agility, skills and consistency to outclass any opponent. But will experience matter in this big stage?

Spain was the pre-tournament favourite. They qualified for the first time to the semifinal stage in their history (though finished 4^th in 1950, it was a group affair with bizarre rules).

They look forward to their forward David Villa for the clinching victory ably supported by Fabregas, Iniesta and both the Xavi(s) (Hernandez and Alonso) in the midfield.

                                                                                                                                 

Though the world missed both Maradona and Larissa Requilme running naked in the streets of their respective countries of Argentina and Paraguay, but there is a lot more to unfold in this grand celebration of the world’s favourite sport in the rainbow nation.