Quarter finals

Argentina 1 Belgium 0 (Brasilia)

Gonzalo Higuain scored for Argentina to knock out pre-tournament dark horses Belgium. The only goal of the match came in the 8th minute when a pass was deflected to Higuain who swiped an instinctive volley from just inside the box past the rooted Courtois. In the 55th minute Higuain picked the ball up in his own half, ran through the Belgian defence into the box and bounced the ball off the bar, and with Belgium unable to find a goal to force extra time Messi broke through in stoppage time but couldn't get past Courtois.

Netherlands 0 Costa Rica 0 (Salvador) Netherlands win on penalties

Tim Krul came off the bench to save 2 penalties in a shootout and end Costa Rica's fairytale run. Having already blocked several Dutch efforts, Navas dived brilliantly to his right in the 39th minute to keep out a 35-yard free kick from Sneijder who in the 82nd minute curled a free kick from the left corner of the box onto the near post. Two minutes later, after a poor clearance, Navas blocked an angled shot from van Persie who also failed to connect in front of goal in the 89th minute and as the Dutch piled on the pressure to avoid extra time Blind's delivery into the danger zone eluded everyone before reaching van Persie whose shot was franticly cleared off the line and onto the bar by Tejeda in stoppage time. In the 3rd minute of extra time Navas dived to push away a header form Vlaar, but with 3 minutes remaining it was Cillessen who saved the day with a vital block when Ureņa ran at the Dutch defence and fired from inside the box. A minute from time Sneijder struck the crossbar from the edge of the area and just before the final whistle Krul replaced Cillessen in goal to steal the limelight from man-of-the-match Navas by saving 2 penalties from Ruiz and Umana and taking the Netherlands into the last four.