So it comes down to Netherlands and Spain. These two great footballing nations have never met each other before at a major tournament and it’s a great time for them to open their account. In fact these two haven’t played each other much over the years – just nine times in total. Their last encounter was a friendly in 2002. In the last 25 years they have played each other just three times but that isn’t to say they won’t be familiar with each other.

This is their most recent match and there will be more clips throughout this post of their past games

Although Rafael van der Vaart is the only Dutch player to currently play in La Liga, Mark van Bommel and Giovanni van Bronckhorst played for Barcelona; Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder for Real Madrid and John Heitinga for Athletico Madrid. This is a double-edged sword for as the Spanish players are going to be familiar about them, so too will these Dutch players be intimate about their opponents.

Barcelona and Real Madrid both have quite a connection to the Dutch with Rinus Michels, Johann Cruyff, Louis Van Gaal and Frank Rijkaard all managing at Barcelona while Leo Beenhakker and Guus Hiddink were at Real Madrid.

In terms of fantasy football there is little you can do now with your teams already having been selected. You can only hope that all the players you selected do well in both the 3rd/4th place playoff and then the final. David Villa and Wesley Sneijder are in a race for the golden boot. Both are currently on five goals and the final will be a game within a game in terms of deciding this prestigious award.

This is their game from 2000:

Although having said that Miroslav Klose and Thomas Mueller are both a goal behind and will have the chance to score in the playoff for third place. Klose will be keen as he is also two goals behind Ronaldo for being the World Cup’s leading scorer. Diego Forlan is also on four goals but he was injured in the semi-final and so it is unlikely that he would play on Saturday night.

Germany and Uruguay also played in this penultimate match at the 1970 World Cup. A game which Germany won 1-0 although no-one really remembers this due to the final between Italy and Brazil.

Spain’s defence has been on fire and they haven’t allowed a goal in any of the knockout matches. That means plenty of points for their backmen and even more when they score like Carlos Puyol did.

The 1987 game: