The Netherlands’ heartbreaking penalty shootout loss to Argentina in the World Cup semi-finals looks to have definitively ended Arjen Robben’s hopes of exorcising his ghosts from the 2010 final.
Wednesday’s game at an overcast Corinthians Arena had been billed as a duel between Robben and lionel Messi, but instead it was the defenders on both sides who took centre-stage.
Having been within touching distance of a second consecutive final appearance, Holland must instead prepare for Saturday’s third-place play-off with Brazil, and Robben was less than enthused by the prospect.
“The third-place matchIJ Honestly, it’s only the title that interested me,” he said. “losing drives me mad. It hurts.” Four years ago, in the final in Johannesburg, he was once again billed as Holland’s lethal weapon, but when put clean through by Sneijder in the second half, with the score 0-0, he could only find Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas’s legs.
Few of Holland’s players wore a look as haunted as Robben’s in the moments after Spain’s 1-0 victory at the Soccer City Stadium, and misfortune was not yet finished with him either.
Robben had already finished on the losing side in a Champions league final in 2010, when Bayern Munich lost 2-0 to Inter Milan, and when fate presented him with an opportunity to make amends, he failed to seize it.
This time, Romero thwarted those hopes, however, and as Robben will be 34 by the time of the 2018 WC, the ghosts of Johannesburg seem destined to haunt him still.