This was the game that saw the belated arrival of Arjen Robben, starting a World Cup match for the first time in South Africa, and scoring a beautifully-worked goal after 18 minutes. When they meet Brazil in the quarter-finals, the odds are likely to favour the Selecao but with Robben in this kind of form, nobody will want to write off the Dutch, for whom Robin van Persie seemed strangely out of sorts. Slovakia were unable to lift themselves and repeat the heroics that eliminated Italy but as their manager, Vladimir Weiss, said: “We spent three days preparing to face Arjen Robben but he is an absolute genius. When I saw he was starting his first match of the tournament for Holland, I knew he would improve them by 50 per cent and I was right.” When Wesley Sneijder added the second Holland could start preparing for an epic quarter-final while Slovakia could go home bathed in glory.