2010 World Cup Alternate Version, Part 2
So far, then, the 2010 World Cup had been OK, but not spectacular. With the exception of defending champs Italy crashing and burning, there hadn’t been any major surprises in the group stage.
For those hoping the African teams would make a strong breakthrough in the first World Cup to be held on the continent, it had been reasonably satisfactory, with both Ghana and hosts South Africa making it through.
Ghana would go on to beat the USA 2-1 after extra time to secure a place in the quarter-finals. Few gave the hosts much chance of following them, given their draw against Diego Maradona’s Argentina, who’d won all three-group stage matches quite easily.
What followed was a quite brilliant game. Argentina would indeed take the lead through a Carlos Tevez goal midway through the first half, though replays would subsequently show he was well offside in the buildup. It looked like this goal was going to be the only goal of the game, despite the hosts best efforts, spurred on by the capacity crowd inside the Soccer City stadium. But then, with 90+2 minutes on the clock, substitute Siyabonga Nomvethe would scramble an equaliser to send the crowd berserk!
Argentina couldn’t recover. The match went to extra time, but they were in no mental position for it having been just moments from victory. The Bafana Bafanas went for the jugular, and a goal from Tshabalala gave them the lead in the 100th minute. The Albiceleste had no response to that; no further goals came, and the hosts had pulled off the shock of the tournament thus far. Maradona would leave his post within a matter of days.
That game, plus the Germany-England game earlier that day, had made many hopeful that the next day’s games would be equally good. First up would be the Netherlands vs Scotland.
For Alex McLeish and Scotland, it had been an odd tournament thus far. Yes, they’d beaten Italy, which is always a great result in any team’s books, but they’d been very lucky to get a draw against New Zealand and had lost badly to Mexico, and had been very lucky that other results had aligned to get them through.
Plus, they hadn’t been performing as well as they had at the Euros two years earlier, even though it was, mostly, the same team as that historic run. Nonetheless, after their much improved performance against Italy, many were hopeful that the worst of it was behind them and things would be better from now on.
They’d need to, given their opponents.
That said, the Dutch weren’t entirely as confident as they might’ve been. Yes, they’d won all three of their games so far, and yes, they’d beaten Scotland home and away in qualifying. But the memories of that game in Basel two years earlier were still fresh in their minds. In fact, add to that the other famous game between the two in Argentina in 1978 and the goalless draw at Euro 96, and Scotland were something of a bogey team for the Oranje.
Nonetheless, as the two teams walked out in Durban, there was still a sense all round that this would be one game too far for a Scotland team who’d been most fortunate to get this far and that the Dutch would finally get one over them at an actual tournament.
And indeed, right from the off, the Dutch dominated possession against a Scotland side now playing in a slightly more attacking 4-3-3 with the standard Brown-Fletcher-Ferguson midfield back, Naismith shifting to the right wing, McFadden on the left and Miller through the middle.
The Scots were being utterly bossed by the Dutch, but, to their credit, they were defending pretty well and there weren’t many chances being created. One finally did go the Netherlands’ way in the form of Arjen Robben, who, despite having three defenders in front of him, launched a great shot that looked bound for the net, only for McGregor to make a great save to deny him.
The Dutch continued to push Scotland back throughout the first half, but, despite utterly dominating the game, with McLeish’s side not even managing a shot, never mind one on target, in the entire half, they couldn’t find a breakthrough, thanks to a combination of McGregor saves and poor finishing on their part.
Half time came with the teams still 0-0, and the crowd inside the stadium booed the players off at half time. Those hoping for a continuation of the excitement and drama of the previous day had been left most disappointed thus far.
As the second half got underway, most were expecting that Scotland’s admittedly pretty good resistance would finally be broken. And indeed, the Dutch just carried on where they left off, surging forwards with the Scotland defence barely getting a breather as wave after wave of attacks came in.
But, much to the Netherlands’ frustration, they still couldn’t find a way through, with their numerous shots either being off target or being saved by McGregor if on. Already, most watching at home and inside the stadium were probably resigning themselves to a boring goalless 90 minutes, then 30 more boring minutes of added time, followed by penalties.
If there was one moment that summed up the Dutch’s night, it came with six regular minutes to go, as Kuyt managed to nutmeg Alan Hutton and McGregor made the mistake of trying to come out and smother him; instead, he made the pass back to Wesley Sneijder, who looked for sure like he would finally tap into the empty net and end the game.
But somehow, McGregor managed to get back in time and leapt on the ball and clutched it under himself. Sneijder’s hands on head expression as he pulled up in frustration said it all. (Kuyt, who’d turned away with his arm raised in celebration as Sneijder took the shot, looked even more exasperated when he looked round and realised why no-one had joined in with him!)
After that, extra time and penalties looked almost certain to be on the way.
But then, with barely a minute of added time to go, Scotland finally managed to get hold of the ball in midfield; Ferguson collected it from Barry Robson (who’d replaced McFadden in the 70th minute), and managed to thread it to Miller, who suddenly found himself one on one with Johnny Heitinga. He just about managed to give the Everton man the slip, albeit after slightly losing his footing, and suddenly only Maarten Stekelenburg, who’d had barely anything to do all game except receive back passes from his own defenders, was between him and the goal.
He tried to dribble round him, Stekelenburg went to try and take it off him, mistimed it, and ended up tripping him over.
Penalty to Scotland!
The Dutch were furious, but their protests fell on deaf ears. No-one could believe it; Scotland had done literally nothing in this game, not even get a shot on target, and now they had the chance to win the game.
Many expected Miller would take the kick himself, but instead, he gave it to his captain, Ferguson. Many fans watching weren’t too happy about that, not least as many (mainly Celtic fans) hadn’t quite forgiven him for the Boozegate incident in Iceland during qualifying and weren’t very impressed that he’d been allowed to keep the armband after it. But, if he could take this spot kick right, all that would surely be forgotten now…
A hush fell around the stadium, and in every household and fan zone watching at home, as Ferguson prepared to take the kick.
It wasn’t the best kick…
…but Stekelenburg guessed wrong and the ball trickled into the net!
Ferguson was immediately mobbed by his teammates! Scotland had surely smashed and grabbed the game in the most smash and grab way possible!
There was barely any time for the dejected Dutch to restart the game. The final whistle blew, and Scotland had done it again to the Oranje. (At this point, many Dutch fans probably started praying they didn’t draw the Scots again at Euro 2012!)
McLeish was, once again, quick to admit that his team barely deserved it; they’d only had 27% possession and the winning penalty had been their only shot on target of the entire game!
But, nonetheless, through to the quarter-finals they were, where they would face the winner of the heavyweight clash later that evening between Brazil and France…
to be continued…
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And there we have it, Scotland are through again! Basically, the same game as that with Slovakia IOTL, except that McGregor saves the shots the Dutch scored with. And Ferguson taking the decisive penalty is based on QTX's first TL, so credit should go to him for that detail, but I decided that Boozegate just getting brushed under the carpet like it was originally ITTL was a tad ASB as, now I think about it, something like that wouldn't just go away like that, even if the mood in the camp is a lot more harmonious here than it was IOTL.
Anyway, a couple more results to bring you...
Yeah, that Japan team deserved better, so Mexico's R16 hoodoo strikes again.
And it is indeed Brazil who Scotland face next; so, tune back in next week to see how that (plus Germany vs South Africa and Spain vs Japan) goes...
