Updated June 29, 2014 5:06 p.m. ET
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, left, and Dirk Kuyt of the Netherlands celebrate Huntelaar's goal against Mexico. Reuters
Fortaleza, Brazil
The Netherlands waited 87 minutes in temperatures that hovered around 100 degrees to snap into action on Sunday. But when they did, the Dutch scored twice late—the second in stoppage time—to beat Mexico 2-1 and survive the World Cup's round of 16.
After Klaas Jan Huntelaar scored the winner from the penalty spot, manager Louis van Gaal stood on the sideline pointing both fingers at his head. His tie still unloosed, van Gaal wanted his players to stay smart and focused until the end.
Not like Mexico.
In the space of seven minutes, El Tri fell apart with a 1-0 lead. In the 88th minute, Mexico gave up a 20-yard equalizer to Wesley Sneijder. Then, Rafa Marquez appeared to trip Arjen Robben in the box, setting up Huntelaar's coolly converted penalty kick in stoppage time. For six straight World Cups now, the round of 16 has been the end of Mexico's road.
The Netherlands' path, on the other hand, now seems wide open. The Dutch face the winner of Costa Rica-Greece, perhaps the weakest round-of-16 game on paper, on Saturday in Salvador.
"The Dutch media thought we would never survive the first round," van Gaal said when asked about the path to the semifinals. "So how did we become favorites?"
The debate over the last-minute penalty will continue long after Mexico boards its flight home. Robben was typically theatrical as he flailed all four limbs, but that masked the more important point: Replays show that Marquez made contact with his foot.
"We will leave [Monday] or the day after, but that referee will also go home," Mexico coach Miguel Herrera said, speculating that the call would cost referee Pedro Proenca of Portugal another World Cup assignment.
But the real turning point came around 15 minutes before Robben hit the deck, when the referee stopped the game for a cooling break. This was the first game at this World Cup with FIFA-mandated cooling breaks due to heat. Suddenly, van Gaal had a chance to speak to his entire team at once.
Like a basketball coach with a crucial timeout, van Gaal altered the course of the game. He brought on Huntelaar in place of Robin van Persie and moved the team from a 4-3-3 back to what he called "Plan B"—plenty of long balls to Huntelaar and Dirk Kuyt with Memphis Depay and Robben making runs wide.
It would have been a hard tweak to make on the fly, communicating through one or two players. But with the team gathered around him, he could move the Oranje to a whole new approach, one they had practiced for just such an occasion.
"We did it also against Chile," goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen said. "Two times we did it, two times we won."
To that point, Mexico had thrown a bucket of ice water on the hottest team in the tournament. Yet another European team was wilting in the Brazilian sun. The heat was so intense that hundreds of fans with tickets for the lower bowl, where they were in an oval of direct sunlight, moved to the shade of the concourse.
"That's a clever way to benefit from these breaks," van Gaal said. "From there, we could find Robben much more often."
Herrera said before the game that in all but one of Mexico's series of last-16 eliminations—the 2006 second round against Argentina—the team had "lacked ideas." So on Sunday, his master scheme was to take the fight to the heart of the Netherlands' four-man defense and shoot on sight.
Three minutes into the second half, it worked for Giovani Dos Santos. As a loose ball bounced more than 20 yards from goal, he struck it sweetly with his left foot and beat Cillessen.
Mexico fell back for much of the second half and, once again, relied on a combination of luck and its goalkeeper, Guillermo Ochoa. He made two breathtaking stops to keep the Dutch at bay. But he was helpless when Sneijder latched onto Huntelaar's header after 87 minutes of anonymity.
Then it was Robben's turn. He had hit the ground a few times already on Sunday afternoon, but this trip to the turf was enough to convince the referee that Marquez had gone too far.
And Huntelaar, sent on by van Gaal right after that cooling break, stepped up for the penalty. "I couldn't watch it," defender Stefan de Vrij said.
He didn't need to. The orange sections of the Estadio Castelao told him all he needed to know.
Write to Joshua Robinson at joshua.robinson@wsj.com
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