The semifinals match between Argentina and the Netherlands on Wednesday appeared to be as uneventful as the high-octane game that World Cup fans had witness during the match between Brazil and Germany. Apart from the fact that the semifinals clash was scoreless in comparison to Germany's ruthless five-goal run in the first 29 minutes of its game against the Selecao, pundits have said that the match in Arean Corinthians in Sao Paulo was a boring up until the penalty shootout.
On the other hand, Dan Diamond for Forbes said that one of the few highlights of the game was important for athletes and activists who have been urging FIFA to increase protections for football players in international matches. Sometime in the game, Argentinian midfielder Javier Mascherano, who is not known to feigning injuries in games, had stumbled and collapsed, calling the attention of both his team members and their opponents. After he received help to get off the field, Mascherano emerged from his team's side two minutes later and played until the end of the game, and had even helped stop a potential ball from Arjen Robben.
Concern about brain safety in contact sports have grown tremendously in the last few months, especially in the National Football Association. A federal judge has recently approved a no-cap, dollar compensation agreement for former players who have concussion-related claims, according to NFL.com. FIFA's policy on the matter, on the other hand, remained to have an impact in curbing potential debilitating concussions in football as the world soccer body has yet to address calls for new protection when Uruguay's Alvaro Pereira was allowed to overrule a team doctor to continue to play in a crucial tournament match just two weeks ago.
At the moment, FIFA has set in place a concussion sideline assessment in the form of a list of questions to be asked in a player. But for players who are playing for world recognition and pride for their country, time is precious during an ongoing match that they have the power to overrule and disregard the concussion assessment.
Diamond said that while western countries like the US might have reacted accordingly on concussion injuries in football players like adopting effective concussion evaluation during games, there is a culture in some countries that urges players to toughen it up if they get injured even though that the injury could very well contribute to their poor performance in the current or future games, at the very least.
Highlighting a point tweeted by journalist Stefan Fatsis, it read, "If all that matters is the result. why don't coaches see that a brain-injured player is a worse player?"
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