To say no one was expecting Tim Krul to come on to the Salvador pitch with less than a minute to go in extra time is not quite true, but one man definitely had no idea.

Jasper Cillesen had kept a clean sheet for 119 minutes and had also just blocked Costa Rica's best effort on goal only to be replaced by a goalkeeper who had not previously featured at this World Cup.

Krul knew he was coming on, but Cillesen had been kept in the dark.

Netherlands coach Louis Van Gaal had told the giant Newcastle stopper that he would be on the pitch if the game went to ­penalties. It did and he was.

What happened next played out to a background of disbelief. Krul saved two of Costa Rica's penalties and nearly saved a third, going the right way for each kick.

The analysis of Van Gaal's late substitution has been forensic.

Aside from the terrific puns that have stemmed from the keeper's name matching Costa Rica's manner of defeat, countless ­column inches have been ­devoted to the decision and its impact.

It's been suggested that Krul may have gone too far with his psyching out of the Costa Rica penalty takers, he didn't, and that he should apologize, he rightly hasn't.

Some have even gone so far as saying that the last minute substitution was against the spirit of the game, which is the kind of misplaced moral outrage usually the preserve of the Daily Mail or Anne Coulter.

Van Gaal made a ballsy ­decision even for a man who once dropped his trousers to prove his reproductive fortitude to his Bayern Munich charges.

It was well within both the laws and the spirit of the game. Considering that the 26-year-old Krul had saved just two of the 20 penalties that he had faced for his club over the last five years it was a choice that also had no obvious grounding in fact.

Krul might not be the most ­famous substitution in soccer, both Solskjaer and ­Sheringham in the 1999 ­Champions League final still spring to mind, or the ­bravest, look no further than Claudio Ranieri taking off ­Rome-born, Roma-bred Francesco­ Totti and Daniele de Rossi at halftime in his first Rome derby, but it is one of the greatest.

A few more decisions like that and the world may yet agree with Van Gaal on the genius of Van Gaal.