The quarter finals are now over and there were some thrilling games involved. Holland stunned Brazil, Uruguay squeezed past Ghana, Germany thrashed Argentina and Spain rode their luck to send Paraguay packing.

There were some great moments in every one of the quarter finals and they were four very different football matches. Brazil never quite found top gear in this tournament and lost the plot after Wesley Sneijder had put the dutch 2-1 up. Holland should have killed the game off with at least two more clear cut chances in the closing stages but it didn’t matter, Brazil had no answers and looked like they’d never been behind in a match before.

Luis Suarez became both a hero and villain when with the game between Uruguay and Ghana at 1-1 in the last minute of extra time, he deliberately handled the ball on the line to stop a goal-bound shot. He was subsequently sent off and Ghana missed the penalty, unbelievably. Ghana’s heads were down and Uruguay saw them off in the penalty shoot-out that followed.

And the match of the tournament so far saw Germany thrash Argentina 4-0. In a similar performance to the one that sent England crashing out – Germany’s strong defence and speedy counter attacks were too much for Argentina. Expect Maradona’s resignation any time soon. In truth Argentina looked brilliant against weak opposition but fell at the first real challenge in almighty style. Both Lionel Messi and Maradona missing in action when the team needed them the most.

On to Spain, who were unexpectedly outplayed in large parts of the game by Paraguay. Spain have looked good in this tournament without ever looking brilliant and were very lucky not be a goal down after Nelson Valdez’s goal was wrongly ruled out for being offside. Spain ultimately broke Paraguay down with David Villa finding the net late in the game to take Spain through 1-0.