World Cup Schedule 2014: Viewing Info and Prediction for Brazil vs Netherlands

Argentina made sure there would be no all-South American third-place match, defeating Netherlands on penalty kicks to send the Dutch to a consolation fixture against hosts Brazil.

The third-place match is always tough to get excited for, with the final looming just a day later, but with the Netherlands and Brazil, there is potential for a scintillating battle.

Let's take a look at everything you need to know.

Date: Saturday, July 12, 2014

Time: 5 p.m. local, 4 p.m. ET, 9 p.m. BST

Where: Estadio Nacional, Brasilia

TV: ESPN

Live Stream: WatchESPN

Odds: Brazil (5-4), Netherlands (2-1), per Odds Shark

Prediction: Netherlands 2, Brazil 1

These matches are so difficult to predict because each team's motivational level is hit or miss in this situation. Do they roll over and come out flat, knowing the match means very little in the grander scheme of things? Do they use it as a teaching point, handing out World Cup experience to the younger players? Or do they come out at full strength, truly playing to win?

For Brazil, you have to believe it will the be the last. The Selecao are in front of the home crowd, and after the catastrophe against Germany, they owe it to an entire nation to play to win.

Luiz Felipe Scolari put it simply, via the Mirror's Jack Lang:

Still, this team has some major problems. While Brazil's positioning and communication in the back was downright horrendous against Germany, that somewhat masked its inefficiency moving forward.

Before Oscar's stoppage-time goal, it had been 276 minutes since Scolari's squad had gotten a goal from someone who wasn't a center back.

Fred and Hulk have been terrible, making the injury to Neymar even more difficult to swallow. Squawka summed it up with some astounding(ly bad) numbers from the semifinal:

To make matters worse, the Dutch have Ron Vlaar sitting in the back of the defense and coming off one of the best matches of his career against Argentina.

Goal.com's Ives Galarcep and Squawka praised the big enforcer:

At the same time, the Netherlands has had a similar problem up front. It hasn't scored a goal in the last 240 minutes, and the match before that, it went 87 minutes against Mexico before finding the back of the net.

Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie, who were so transcendent in group play, have struggled to make an impact lately.

Luis van Gaal's squad is desperately lacking creativity. Against Argentina, goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen was third on the team with two successful dribbles, per WhoScored.com.

Ultimately, both of these teams have plenty of weaknesses, and that could actually make for a thrilling, wide-open match.

In the end, though, the return of Thiago Silva to shore up Brazil's defense, the home-soil advantage and the motivation factor following Tuesday's embarrassing loss will be enough to propel the Selecao to a bittersweet third-place finish.