World Cup 2014 11am Bulletin: No more Spain as Chile reign

Spain's stars seemed to enjoy watching Alexis Sanchez at work

Spain's loss is Netherlands and Chile's gain, while Croatia still have plenty to do despite beating Cameroon 4-0...

A week into the World Cup, tempers are starting to fray.

Alex Song killed Cameroon's hopes with an idiotic elbow to Mario Mandzukic's back, Benoit Assou-Ekotto head-butted colleague Benjamin Moukandjo and Greece's Giannis Maniatis hastily booked a soon-cancelled flight home in a rage at Giorgos Tzavellas' poor training-ground crossing.

Though just two groups have completed their second set of games, the identify of two round-of-16 participants - Netherlands and Chile - and three teams going home - world champions Spain, Australia and Cameroon - have already been revealed.

Spain's exit, sealed with a 0-2 defeat to Chile was without question the headline-grabbing moment of day seven if not the entire tournament so far. While holders have failed to get out of their group before - most recently Italy in 2010 and France in 2002 - this felt far more shocking.

Vicente del Bosque's side had won their previous three major tournaments and Spanish clubs bossed Europe in 2013/14, claiming both the Champions League and Europa League as not a single La Liga representative suffered knockout-round elimination to a foreign foe.

Sure, Spain weren't as dominant at last year's Confederations Cup as Euro 2012 or World Cup 2010, but they still saw off Uruguay and Italy to reach the final, with only hosts Brazil able to stop them.

Chile were an impressive cocktail of graft and incision in ensuring their progress at Spain's expense, much as the Netherlands were made to look outstanding against the 2010 champions.

The Oranje were poor against Australia despite recovering for a 3-2 win, giving the ball away far too often and looking shaky at the back. Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben are lethal enough to negate much of the damage, and are 12.5n/a and 15.5n/a to be top goalscorer after raising their tallies to three.

However, the fact that both Netherlands and Chile came closer to spilling points against Australia than Spain hints that it might be erroneous to read too much into their eye-catching results against the latter. If you disagree, the Dutch are 13.012/1 for the trophy, with Chile can be backed at 26.025/1.

In Group A, Croatia's 4-0 breeze past ten-man Cameroon keeps three nations in contention come next Monday's finale, with Brazil and Mexico on four points and Croatia on three. Unless the hosts lose to Cameroon, Niko Kovac's men require victory over Mexico to qualify, which is why they are 2.466/4 outsiders to do so.

Thursday's schedule sees Colombia face Ivory Coast and Japan meet Greece in Group C, while in between you may have heard that England have a fairly important Group D clash with fellow matchday-one losers Uruguay.

Dave Farrar expects nerves to give way to goals in Sao Paulo, while tactical expert Michael Cox foresees an England triumph. In Group C, Andrew Atherley advises backing Colombia to win and Japan to prevail 1-0.

Still not sated in your search for great World Cup betting content? Fear not, because Jonathan Wilson is on hand to analyse the unusually high strike rate in Brazil.