I don't know whether this was incredible guess work, or whether the Brazilians have been so thorough, they had prepared a dossier on each of the Dutch penalty takers. Many teams now go to extraordinary lengths to learn about the potential spot-kick specialists of the opposition and I wouldn't be surprised if the world champions were among them.

Teams study hours and hours of video footage of league matches and internationals in their bid to find clues to a player's penalty technique. If the Brazilian coach Mario Zagallo was this thorough in his preparations for the semi-final, his dedication has certainly paid off handsomely.

I know from bitter experience the game of bluff and doublebluff involved in a World Cup penalty shoot-out.

Things were slightly different when I was playing for England because you had to stay perfectly still on the line before the penalty was struck.

We had made only very limited preparations for the 1990 semi-final shoot-out and I didn't know what to expect from the Germans.

There are little tricks a goalkeeper can use like watching the way the player places the ball and where he looks as he is doing it to help you guess the directions he is going to shoot.

Sometime you just get a feeling for the way they will aim and other times you wait until they have hit the shot before making you move.

Really as a goalkeeper all you can hope is that you get a couple of penalties at waist height and within reach.

The Brazilians reminded me of a lot of the Germans in the way they approached their semi-final penalty shoot-out.

I hope they now go on to win the World Cup for a fifth time. In Ronaldo they undoubtedly have the finest player on the planet and hedeserves the chance to hold that famous gold trophy aloft.