No joy for Brazil as Holland wins easily

Brazilian World Cup fans will be glad to see the tournament end as their national team was trounced for the second consecutive match, this time 3-0 by the Netherlands.

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More misery for Brazil as Dutch take third place

BRASïLIA, Brazil, AFP – Brazil's traumatic World Cup ended with more pain on Saturday as they lost 3-0 to a superior Netherlands side in the third-place play-off at the Mane Garrincha National Stadium in Brasilia. (video highlights http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/videos/highlights/match=300186502/index.html)

Still struggling to digest their record-breaking 7-1 loss to Germany in the semi-finals, Brazil had a similarly disastrous start against the Dutch, with Robin van Persie opening the scoring from the penalty spot inside three minutes.

With injured star Neymar watching on from the bench, Daley Blind then capitalised on more calamitous defending to make it 2-0 with 17 minutes played, and Georginio Wijnaldum rubbed salt into the hosts' wounds by adding a third in injury time.

Brazil have now lost back-to-back home games for the first time since 1940, and they end the tournament having conceded 14 goals altogether, the most of any side at a World Cup since 1986 and the most ever for a host team.

In contrast, Louis van Gaal's Netherlands leave with the consolation of taking third place and end the competition unbeaten, with their semi-final exit against Argentina only coming after a penalty shoot-out.

The absence of Thiago Silva, along with that of Neymar, was a contributing factor in Brazil's semi-final humiliation, but the usually inspirational centre-back was at fault as Brazil conceded a penalty with less than two minutes played.

Silva was caught the wrong side of Robben as the winger latched on to a pass from Holland captain van Persie and was left with a clear path on goal.

Robben was pulled back by the defender, with the contact starting outside the box and carrying on into the area. Algerian referee Djamel Haimoudi decided to award a spot-kick but controversially opted against showing Silva a straight red card.

If Silva was let off the hook, van Persie made no mistake from the spot, lashing his kick high into the top right-hand corner to give goalkeeper Julio Cesar no chance.

Once again Brazil's defensive frailties were hopelessly exposed when the Netherlands' second goal arrived in the 17th minute.

De Guzman broke in behind Maxwell in the Brazilian left-back position and got to the byline, from where his cross was headed back out by David Luiz and straight into the path of Blind, who had time to take the ball down 12 yards out and volley home.

Fortunately for a fragile Brazilian side, Holland were not quite as relentless in their attacking as the Germans had been in Belo Horizonte, but the hosts never appeared capable of breaking down the opposition defence.

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