Netherlands goalkeeper Tim Krul was back defending himself on Sunday, less than 24 hours after making two stunning penalty saves against Costa Rica to book his team's place in the World Cup semifinals.
The towering Krul came under heavy criticism on social media for his intimidating tactics against the Costa Rican penalty takers, staring them down and yelling at them before they took their shots.
Asked whether he had overstepped the line of good sportsmanship, a defiant Krul said he had nothing to apologise for.
"I don't think I've done anything wrong," he told a news conference at his team's training ground in Rio on Sunday. "I didn't shout anything nasty at them. I just told them that I knew where they were going. I'm trying obviously to get in their heads and it worked yesterday.
"It's a way of trying to psyche them out. Obviously they are under massive pressure, I'm under massive pressure as well so I used everything in my power to make it happen and luckily enough, happy enough it happened."
Krul, who has saved just two of 20 penalties he faced with his club side Newcastle, said the mind games had begun even before he stood on the line to try and save the first spot-kick.
"I definitely think it had an impact, when I started my warm-up their whole bench was confused," he said.
"If you see their manager's face when I came on, he was looking over at our manager, his face was priceless. It was definitely one of those fantastic moves."
Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal, a renowned master tactician, had been hatching the plan for some time.
"The manager and the goalie coach told me before the game that if we had a substitution left there was a possibility that they may use me in the penalty shootout," Krul said.