Goalkeeper Tim Krul came off the bench late in extra time and saved two penalties as Netherlands beat Costa Rica in a shootout to set up a World Cup semi-final against Argentina.<\/p>\n
Newcastle’s Krul saved from Bryan Ruiz and Michael Umana to send the Dutch through after the game finished 0-0.<\/p>\n
Wesley Sneijder had hit the woodwork twice for Netherlands, while Robin van Persie had a shot turned onto the bar.<\/p>\n
The Dutch face Argentina, who beat Belgium,<\/a> in Sao Paulo on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Netherlands boss Louis van Gaal, who will take charge at Manchester United<\/a> at the end of the tournament, brought Krul on for Jasper Cillessen in added time at the end of 120 minutes.<\/p>\n And his two saves proved decisive as the Dutch – who had lost each of their previous four World Cup matches that went to extra time – converted all four of their spot-kicks.<\/p>\n Costa Rica had progressed as winners<\/a> from a group containing Uruguay, Italy and England, and once again impressed with their organisation and energy.<\/p>\n But just as they did against Mexico in the second round,<\/a> Van Gaal’s team found a way through despite being some way short of the fluency they showed<\/a> in patches during the group phase.<\/p>\n Twenty-one minutes had passed before Netherlands managed an effort on goal.<\/p>\n A sweeping move down the right ended with Dirk Kuyt pulling a cross back and Memphis Depay laid the ball off for Van Persie, whose low drive was blocked by goalkeeper Keylor Navas, who also saved Sneijder’s follow-up.<\/p>\n Depay might have done better when he was slipped through by Van Persie, but the PSV Eindhoven forward’s stab at the near post was turned away by Navas.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Costa Rica’s only threat came from Christian Bolanos free-kicks, with one flying just too high for midfielder Celso Borges to connect with, and another headed back across goal by Borges only for Johnny Acosta to fail to make contact.<\/p>\n Navas showed his quality once again when he tipped a bending Sneijder free-kick away from the top corner, but Netherlands offered little going forward as the second half developed.<\/p>\n After forcing Giancarlo Gonzalez to head off target following a Bolanos set-piece, Ron Vlaar glanced a header high and wide from a whipped Sneijder free-kick at the other end.<\/p>\n And when Navas was beaten, Sneijder’s curling free-kick bounced away off a post.<\/p>\n As Netherlands exerted some late pressure, Navas turned away a low drive from Van Persie and the Manchester United striker failed to make contact with a fine Sneijder cross.<\/p>\n Yeltsin Tejeda then diverted a close-range Van Persie effort onto the crossbar as a tiring Costa Rica took the game into extra time.<\/p>\n The Dutch continued to push on, with Navas forced to palm away a Vlaar header, but they could not find a way through, and Costa Rica had a penalty appeal rejected when Vlaar challenged substitute Marcos Urena, who then forced a full-length save from Cillessen.<\/p>\n There was still time for Sneijder’s 20-yard drive to strike the crossbar, but it went to a penalty shootout and after Van Persie, Robben, Sneijder and Kuyt converted their penalties, Krul’s save from Urena sent the 2010 beaten finalists through to the last four.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Goalkeeper Tim Krul came off the bench late in extra time and saved two penalties as Netherlands beat Costa Rica in a shootout to set up a World Cup semi-final against Argentina. Newcastle’s Krul saved from Bryan Ruiz and Michael Umana to send the Dutch through after the game finished 0-0. Wesley Sneijder had hit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":29986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-29985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}