WORLD CUP 2010 QUARTER-FINAL Brazil 1 Netherlands 2:PERHAPS WE yearned too much for this to be the latest sequel in a series of classics. As a game it was too full of error and rancour to please the purists, but as a spectacle it enthralled. The bumpy old pitch in Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium threw up the result of the competition.

The game had it all. High stakes. Moments of pure genius. Top-class howlers. Bad temper. Yellow cards. A red card. A scapegoat. And a shock result. Brazil exit the World Cup they had become favourites to win.

What bitter irony for Dunga, the man who more than any of his predecessors has inflicted order and systems on Brazil. He watched as his side disintegrated, losing its sense of organisation and its sense of discipline. The man who strait-jacketed his team into a “system” saw them go out for want of a moment of unpredictability.

South African TV has been showing highlights of previous encounters between these sides and yesterday’s edition bore more similarities than were welcome with their first clash back in 1974 when the heavily-favoured Brazilians fell behind to goals from Neeskens and Cruyff.

The Brazilians just four years on from 1970 were by then a collection of mullets and bad dye jobs and set about hacking the Dutch for want of any better ideas. Yesterday, in Port Elizabeth, they started with that sort of niggle and it never quite stopped.

Felipe Melo came back in for Brazil, a return which will always be viewed as a mixed blessing while the Dutch lost centre-half Joris Mathijsen in the warm-up and replaced him at the last moment with Andre Ooijer, the veteran PSV defender.

The early signs were ominous for the Dutch. In the seventh minute Robinho netted only for play to be called back for an offside. Seconds later Maicon made the first of his explosive bursts from right back. The Brazilians had the demeanour of a cat playing with a mouse before killing it. A couple of minutes later the claws were out for real.

Melo played the most gorgeous ball straight up the field from just inside his own half. The Dutch centre-halves had lost touch with each other entirely with Fabiano pulling one way and Robinho dropping off to the left and then accelerating into the space where Melo found him with that killer ball. With his first touch Robinho buried it.

A lovely, thoughtful goal.

Suddenly the Dutch were in that awful purgatorial place. A goal down early. To Brazil! Should they push forward and risk leaving themselves open to a second goal. Should they stick with the script and counter-attack when the chance came. It was hard to discern which option they chose. Either way they did it badly.

Nothing for the remainder of the half suggested they were capable of staging their own escape mission. The Brazilians, a little sloppy with their shooting, were still managing to carve the chances. Daniel Alves riverdanced with the ball on the right side of the penalty area before pulling it back at his leisure for Juan, who drove it over rather than score another beautiful goal.

On the half-hour Robinho, out wide on the left, took two players out with the sort of footwork which reminded us of what all the fuss was about. Kaka took the little pass and essayed a shot which curled to the top corner only to be flailed away brilliantly by Maarten Stekelenburg.

By half-time the score was unchanged but the odds on Brazil had hardened. There was a time when we were all kids when we believed two things about Brazilian football. Everybody learned to play on the beach or in the favela. Nobody wanted to be a goalkeeper or a defender.

For two decades Brazil have been proving the opposite is the case and to this World Cup they appeared to have brought their most convincing defence yet. Until yesterday they had looked wonderful. Julio Cesar goaltending behind them had looked even better. The Dutch were going to have to push on if they were to have any hope. The Dutch, we decided, had no hope.

And then on 52 minutes a gift from the heavens. A moment to remind us that everything we think we know is wrong. Wesley Sneijder from the right, looping a long, floating ball in. Cesar came enthusiastically and missed comprehensively. The ball skimmed off the head of Melo who seemed not to know a lot about it until it landed in the Brazilian net.

Sneijder ran to a television camera Maradona-style as if he had just completed a work of genius, but this was a huge slice of luck. One-all nevertheless. And we weren’t done with Melo.

The luck was for the Dutch but a gift for the neutral too. We had a game now. How would Brazil respond? Not well, was the surprising answer. Just after the hour Michel Bastos had to be withdrawn by Dunga after a series of frank tackles on Arjen Robben had earned the fullback a yellow card.

In the wake of their goal, it seemed at last possible that there would be a single moment of genius to let the Dutch in again. It came in the 68th minute when a Robben corner was flicked on by Kuyt and an unmarked Sneijder headed firmly to the net.

Astonishing. Suddenly Brazil had little over 20 minutes with which to save their World Cup. Worse was to come for them when Melo, the architect of Brazil’s beautiful opening goal and the fall guy in the Dutch, fouled Robben but followed up by stamping on the Dutchman. Straight red and deservedly so. Brazil down to 10 men and the minutes ticking away.

We expected an onslaught. Instead we got the broken sound of a malfunctioning machine. The passes which the Brazilians had strung together so fluently in the first half were just a memory.

At the end it was the Dutch who were tearing apart the jaded, foul-tempered Brazilians. Twenty four games now the unbeaten run of the Oranje has gone to. None of the preceding 23 as unlikely or as significant as this.