Third time’s the charm…?

By Amit Katwala, writing from England

Luck has an important role to play in football, be it in the form of penalty successes and misses, refereeing mistakes or an unfortunate slip at an unfortunate moment. Frank Lampard’s not given goal against Germany, Uruguay’s escape against Ghana, Tim Cahill’s harsh sending off. The general wisdom is that these events even themselves out over the course of a season, but in the intense flurry of games that is the World Cup, some teams may get more than their fair share.

The Netherlands progressed to their third World Cup final tonight with a 3-2 win over Uruguay, and although have won all 6 of their matches so far they are yet to really start firing on all cylinders. Luck has played its part in their route to the final - a freak own goal by Denmark, a slightly less freakish one against Brazil, goalkeeping error against Japan, and tonight a goal that could easily have been called offside.