Mexico defender Rafa Marquez stuck his foot out and Netherlands winger Arjen Robben went down for an injury-time penalty that took his team into the World Cup quarter-finals with a 2-1 win.

Did Robben dive or was he fouled by Marquez?

Or – to ask the fashionable question that evades the issue of whether it was actually a foul – was there ‘contact’?

If there was contact, was it the result of the Mexican’s movement or Robben’s ability to connect with the defender?

Those are the judgments Portuguese referee Pedro Proenca had to make in the final seconds of an intense game played in baking heat in Fortaleza with a last-eight place on the line.

Who would be a referee?

Of course, the partisan took predictable positions on the incident but it was hard to find consensus among the neutrals.

It does not help that Robben has dived frequently in the past and had been clearly looking for a penalty in this game.

But then the Dutch could argue, with some justification, that he should have had a spot kick earlier in the game and also highlight how, not long before the penalty, he had skipped over a lunging Marquez as he tried, in vain, to score.

Of course, it could be pointed out that what happened previously should have no bearing whatsoever on Proenca’s evaluation of the incident.

RISK ‘CONTACT’

Critics would say Marquez was reckless or naive to stick out his foot with Robben moving away from goal, leaving Klaas-Jan Huntelaar to score the spot kick and put the Dutch through.

But the question now being asked is: Has the game reached the stage where a defender is not allowed to even attempt a tackle in the penalty area because it may risk ‘contact’ that would justify a penalty kick?

The answer to the last question is yes, a defender, in modern football, cannot risk contact with an opponent in the penalty area because if it results in a fall, even an embellished one, the referee will probably give a penalty.

In the NBA it is called ‘drawing the foul’ and is universally accepted, but modern football has not found the vocabulary for it nor the acceptance of the ‘dive after contact’.

The crucial difference is that in basketball the punishment for such fouls is a couple of free-throws with two points available in a game with a total of about 200 points scored.

In football, ‘drawing the foul’ can – and does – decide the outcome.

Video technology is often presented as the solution for most refereeing problems but it offers little help in these cases.

When you listen to the modern professional player talk about such incidents they will accept that a player has ‘made the most of it’ by falling but if there was some sort of contact an exaggerated collapse is now viewed as justified.

If the game is not happy with that state of affairs then it needs to do some hard thinking about how it might change the rules or their interpretation in order to deal with the problem.

The pendulum seems to have shifted too far in favour of the attacker in these situations and, while there is no obvious quick-fix solution, rewarding embellishment seems an unsatisfactory status quo.

Former captain Rahul Dravid will have a few sessions with the Indian batsmen ahead of their first Test against England starting at Nottingham on July 9, although he has not been appointed in any capacity, BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel said on Sunday.

Sources said skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and coach Duncan Fletcher had approached the BCCI to have Dravid for a few interactive sessions with the young batsmen and the batting legend readily agreed to it.

“Let me clarify at the outset that Rahul Dravid has not been appointed batting consultant or in any other capacity.

Since he is a legend and has enjoyed stupendous success in England, the team management wanted the boys to interact with him before the first Test,” Patel said.

“Subsequently MS and Duncan requested me to find out whether Rahul could spare some time with the boys ahead of 1st Test at Nottingham. I spoke to Rahul and he was gracious enough to agree. We want him to share his vast experience. He has had so much success in England that no one can tell the current lot better about technique and temperament than Rahul,” he added.

With a spectacular swivel-and-strike, James Rodriguez provided one of the highlights of the World Cup and gave Brazil reason to worry. Rodriguez scored one of the best goals of the tournament and added a second to put Colombia into the World Cup quarterfinals for the first time with a 2-0 win over Uruguay on Saturday — setting up a meeting with the host nation.

Rodriguez added to his growing list memorable moments in Brazil when he gave his team the lead with a long-range volley as he turned in the 28th minute. He scored the second from close range shortly after the break as Colombia dominated an Uruguay side that sorely missed banned striker Luis Suarez.

“I think now the toughest is coming up,” Rodriguez said of the quarterfinal match against Brazil. “I’m happy because we are making history and as a young man I dreamed of being here. And of course we want to do even more.”

Rodriguez now has a tournament-leading five goals in Brazil and further enhanced his status as perhaps the World Cup’s biggest revelation. In the absence of injured star Radamel Falcao, the Monaco winger has become the focal point of a Colombia team that won all three of its group games with impressive attacking play.

Uruguay, meanwhile, simply couldn’t find anyone to fill the absence of Suarez. The team struggled badly in attack and replacement striker Diego Forlan was substituted in the 53rd after a disappointing performance in what was likely his final World Cup appearance.

Colombia is playing its first World Cup since 1998 and has already achieved its best-ever result.

“Congratulations to all the Colombian people,” said coach Jose Pekerman, who is from Argentina. “The people in Colombia deserve this.”

Colombia will play Brazil in the quarterfinals on July 4 in Fortaleza after the host nation beat Chile in a penalty shootout earlier Saturday.

STANDOUT MAN

But Rodriguez showed once again that the Brazilians have every reason to be wary of Colombia. The opener was his most spectacular goal yet. He chested the ball down with his back to goal well outside the area and in one fluid motion turned around and fired a left-foot volley that went off the underside of the crossbar and into the net.

It was a goal that came seemingly out of nowhere and provided another example of the technique and creativity that has made Rodriguez one of the standout players of the tournament.

Uruguay defender Alvaro Pereira tried to clear the ball with a diving header, but it went straight to Abel Aguilar, who headed it forward toward Rodriguez. His maneuver only took a split second and left goalkeeper Fernando Muslera flailing helplessly as the ball looped over him and into the net. Rodriguez ran over the corner flag and thrust both hands out to his sides in a “how about that” gesture.

“I think he is the best player of the tournament so far,” Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez said.

Rodriguez’s second was a perfectly executed team move as Colombia worked the ball over from the right flank to the left, where Pablo Armero sent in a cross that was met by Juan Cuadrado at the far post. Cuadrado headed back across goal toward Rodriguez, who slotted in from just a few yards (meters) out. This time, the entire team ran over the corner flag for a celebratory dance.

Not the same team

Tabarez tried to respond with a double substitution, taking off Forlan and Alvaro Pereira for Gaston Ramirez and Cristhian Stuani. That livened up the attack, with goalkeeper David Ospina having to make good saves from Cristhian Rodriguez and Maxi Pereira before diving to push away a shot from Edinson Cavani in the 84th.

But in the end Uruguay simply couldn’t cope without Suarez, who was banned for four months for biting an opponent in the group-stage victory against Italy that sent the team through to the next round. Suarez also missed Uruguay’s first game of the tournament, a 3-1 loss to Costa Rica, before scoring both goals in a 2-1 win over England.

“We all knew what happened, but we had to forget about it and think positive,” Tabarez said. “Suarez is a great player, and I don’t need to say it. He is very important. But we knew he wasn’t going to play.”

Mexico coach Miguel Herrera blamed referee Pedro Proenca for his side’s last 16 World Cup exit on Sunday after his decision to award a stoppage-time penalty allowed the Netherlands to seal a thrilling 2-1 comeback victory.

With two minutes to play Mexico led 1-0 but Wesley Sneijder equalised with a fierce drive before captain Rafael Marquez was judged to have tripped Arjen Robben and Klaas Jan Huntelaar calmly scored to put the Dutch in the quarter-finals.

“It seems to me the reason (we lost) was the referee, the man with the whistle. He left us outside the next stage of the World Cup,” Herrera told reporters.

“If the referee starts marking fouls that don’t exist, you leave the World Cup to circumstances out of your hands. We expect the referee committee to take a look at that and that this gentleman goes home, just like us.”

With victory in their grasp on a scorching afternoon at the Castelao arena, the defeat was a particularly sore one for Mexico who have reached the last 16 at six consecutive World Cups and have lost every time.

“It’s a World Cup where everything was against Mexico… Out of the four matches that we had, three of them were referee disasters… Unfortunately we didn’t achieve what we wanted,” Herrera said.

The Mexico boss was perhaps understandably prickly about the officiating going into the game after his side had two goals harshly disallowed in their opening match against Cameroon, and a strong penalty appeal turned down against Croatia.

He said the spot kick for the Dutch could also have been avoided had Robben been booked for diving earlier in the game, suggesting the winger may not have risked going down so easily under the challenge of Marquez for the late penalty.

“He dived three times, he should have cautioned him the first time,” said Herrera, who also questioned why Portugal’s Proenca had been selected for the game, suggesting a referee from Africa, Asia or South America would have been fairer.

“I’m happy and calm about the performance of the boys… We’d done really well. Then the team sits back and we start to give chances to a team that had not done anything.

“(But) with the assistance of the referee they came up with this result that takes (the Netherlands) to the next stage.

“We will leave tomorrow or the day after. We hope that referee does as well.”

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Wesley Sneijder scored late goals Sunday to give the Netherlands a 2-1 victory over Mexico and a spot in the World Cup quarterfinals. Huntelaar, who came on as a 76th-minute substitute, scored the winning goal from the penalty spot deep in injury time after Rafael Marquez brought down Arjen Robben in the area.

“You don’t know when your chance will come, but it was today, and so you grab it with both hands,” said Huntelaar, who was making his first appearance at this year’s World Cup. “And it was fantastic.”

Giovani Dos Santos gave the Mexicans the lead in the 48th minute, but Sneijder equalized for the Dutch in the 88th. It was the first time Sneijder, who scored five goals at the last World Cup in South Africa, has found the net in Brazil.

Robben has already scored three goals for the Dutch at this year’s tournament, but after earning the late penalty, he handed the ball to Huntelaar. “Klaas is a great penalty taker. He was fresh, had just come on and I had faith in him,” Robben said. “I asked him if he wanted to take it and he was very sure of himself.”

Huntelaar and Sneijder scored the goals at the hot and steamy Arena Castelao, but it was Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal that may just deserve the credit for making a crucial tactical change during the second of two official cooling breaks. As he did earlier against Australia, the master tactician again switched his team around in the second half, changing from the more defensive 5-3-2 system to the traditional Dutch attacking 4-3-3 formation.

“Yes, we escaped,” Van Gaal said. “But we showed that we could create more chances with 4-3-3, and the players handled this shift very well.”

Van Gaal said he made his critical switch during the second-half break, huddling with his players as they drank from bottles on the sideline. “I moved to ‘Plan B’ at the cooling break after (Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo) Ochoa made an amazing save,” said Van Gaal, soon to be the manager at Manchester United. “That is a good way to take advantage of those breaks.”

Ochoa had kept his team in the match with two great saves in the second half, but he was beaten by Sneijder’s powerful drive and guessed wrong when diving in an attempt to stop Huntelaar’s penalty.

The Mexicans had conceded only one goal in three group matches and looked like they would keep another clean sheet until the late collapse. It was heartbreak again for Mexico, which has now reached the second stage of the World Cup six straight times without winning. The last time the team made the quarterfinals was when it hosted the tournament in 1986.

After the final whistle, the Mexican players collapsed, distraught on the turf while many of their fans were in tears.

Mexico coach Miguel Herrera blamed the referee for the loss, saying Robben dived to earn the penalty. “Today it was the man with the whistle who eliminated us from the World Cup,” Herrera said. “If a referee invents a penalty, you’re out of the World Cup. I hope they have a look at what happened and that this gentleman goes home just like we are.”

It was the fourth straight win for the Netherlands at the World Cup after routing defending champion Spain 5-1 and beating Australia 3-2 and Chile 2-0 in Group B. The Dutch will next face either Costa Rica or Greece in the quarterfinals on Saturday in Salvador.

“Unbelievable,” Robben said. “Five minutes from full time, we were out.”

(Associated Press)