With their silky skills and intelligent play, Brazil are just about everyone's idea of what the perfect footballing team should look like.

If they aren't your favourite side, they are probably your second favourite.

It's been that way for years - you love England, but admire Brazil … you're a Holland supporter, but Brazil has a piece of your heart. Winning five World Cups will attract that sort of admiration.

But Brazilian fans are another story – perhaps because they are used to success, there is an undeniable arrogance to their support. As much as they back their own team, they taunt the supporters of teams that their Samba footballers cast aside.

On Monday night, at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, Brazil had just taken a 2-0 lead when pockets of their support turned to face the strong Chilean contingent - and began waving goodbye.

It's an approach that neutrals can find particularly distasteful. Of course, we knew that Brazil would prevail, and reach the quarter-finals, but we admired the way that Chile pressed forward, always looking for goals even when they knew the risks of not organising 10 men behind the ball against mighty Brazil. Their fans, here in great numbers, deserved better than to be taunted.

Today, in Port Elizabeth, the country with the most World Cup victories takes on the best country never to win the ultimate prize. Brazil must be the favourite – when is the last time they weren't in a competitive match?– but The Netherlands are unbeaten in more than 20 matches, and in Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie they have a couple of match winners who can trouble Brazil.

More than a few neutrals will be hoping that the Dutch prevail, if only to see Brazilian fans on the receiving end of a goodbye wave.

Trouble for The Netherlands, though, is they might never see the ball.

That's what happened to Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo here in Cape Town on Tuesday night as Spain's possession football – and staunch defending to win the ball back on the rare occasion they lost it – meant that the Portuguese star was starved of the ball.

Spain would have run out winners by three or four goals if not for Portugal's Eduardo, surely the finest goalkeeper at this World Cup.

Brazil have known about the importance of possession for 50 years, and virtually every other successful team here – Argentina, for example – knows it, too. It's a lesson that England needs to learn - almost nothing bad can happen when you keep possession of the ball, but England still press forward with an impatient, high risk approach.

That's not their only shortcoming of course. One of the lessons of this World Cup is that there is no substitute for speed of thought and deed.

So, while England players pondered what to do with the ball only after receiving it, other teams were on the move, with multiple players making intelligent runs and the man about to receive possession already considering his options.

For me, Brazil and Spain are the best two examples of the importance of possession, pace and quick thinking, and that's why I expect them to reach the semi-finals. Spain have yet to turn their possession into goals on the scale of Brazil, but they still control matches, and I expect them to beat Paraguay.

In the other two matches, I fancy experienced Argentina to prevail against Germany - the Germans will be a handful at Euro 2012 in Poland/Ukraine, but this World Cup might be a bit early for their young team. It should be a cracking match, though, a close run thing.

As the only African team left, Ghana have sentiment on their side - every South African we have met is squarely behind the Black Stars.

They are a dangerous side, full of pace and spectacular finishing as the United States found out to their dismay. But Uruguay, who qualified for the World Cup with a playoff victory against Costa Rica, are a tough, resilient side with two world class finishers in Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez, so I'll pick them to prevail.

Over the next two days, we will likely be reminded again that teams that keep the ball, and attack with speed, ultimately get rewarded.

Veteran World Cup observer Duncan Hall is reporting exclusively from South Africa for The Royal Gazette.