World Cup 2006

nutball said:
On the basis of that performance I'd have to say that Germany are now head and shoulders the clear favourites to win the World Cup. They played for a penalty shoot-out from the get-go, and the Argentinians delivered it to them with their negative play when they went ahead.

I can't see any team beating them in a penalty situation, and Germany will play for that from now on, against ... Italy next and then ... Brazil in the final.
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LOL you a German fan, or Someone that has no clue about Football, Germany was out played for most of the game, they only showed up after Argentina scored and went away after they scored, Argentina Controlled that game the germans look over powered, it was bad coaching by the Argentina coach that lost them that game, after they scored they went into a Defensive shell and instead of playing the game the way they started they were trying to protect a crappy 1 goal Lead, the Argentine Coach was a Fool I can't believe the most explosive player on your team never got on the Field, they deserved to lose and it didn't help that there Goalie was hurt, another break for the Host Germany, if I was a fan of Germany I would question if they can even beat Italy.
 
deathstar121 said:
LOL you a German fan, or Someone that has no clue about Football, Germany was out played for most of the game, they only showed up after Argentina scored and went away after they scored, Argentina Controlled that game the germans look over powered, it was bad coaching by the Argentina coach that lost them that game, after they scored they went into a Defensive shell and instead of playing the game the way they started they were trying to protect a crappy 1 goal Lead, the Argentine Coach was a Fool I can't believe the most explosive player on your team never got on the Field, they deserved to lose and it didn't help that there Goalie was hurt, another break for the Host Germany, if I was a fan of Germany I would question if they can even beat Italy.
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Wow, good to see that you have a clue about football...
 
Cowboy X said:
The Argentina coach lost them the game . Bad substitutions and poor tactics .
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I feel sorry for the guy. I think many coaches might have made similar subs towards the end.

epic
 
Sincerely, the Argentina-Germany match was pretty poor yesterday: the first half was beyond boring, the second was certainly more lively (but I don't think it could have got worse anyhow) but, except the action that led Germany to equalize, not a glorious football at all: I guess both teams were almost paralized by fear. Disappointing match...
 
The match was only dissapointing if all you care about in football are goals. I guess you had to be a fan of one of the teams to enjoy the match for what it was. Very intense football game IMO with an atmosphere so thick, you could cut the air with a knife. It certainly wasn't one of the most entertaining matches this year, but not a bad game at all. Both teams were playing at a pretty high level, so well that they cancelled each other out. Especially the defensive behaviour of both teams was excellent (who would've expected that from the german team only 3 weeks ago?).

Argentina had the technically better players (everybody knew that before, so no news there), but they couldn't translate that into playing better football. In the end the germans actually had more chances straight from the game, while the argentinians had to rely mostly on corners and free-kicks to get anywhere near Lehmann's goal. A penalty shootout was the obvious consequence of this game and from then on its mostly luck. Both teams would have deserved to advance, but only one can.

Italy vs. Ukraine was IMO the worse game of the two, despite more goals and shots on goal. The game was dominated by horrible passing and many individual errors all over the field. Italy was the better team and a deserving winner, but they definitely had a load of luck and a great goalie on their side, the 3:0 sounds more comfotable that it was...
 
I honestly think Argentina has been overhyped throughout the World Cup. Sure, they played well against both Serbia/Montenegro and Ivory Coast, but didn't impress against Holland, certainly didn't impress against Mexico, and then basically gave the game away to Germany. It was obvious that they'd lose one way or the other as soon as they scored 1-0. The first half of Germany - Argentina looked basically the same as when they played the first half against Holland; they clearly owned the ball but didn't do shit with it, and then proceeded to give the game away in the second half.
 
oi said:
Argentina looked basically the same as when they played the first half against Holland; they clearly owned the ball but didn't do shit with it
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Yeah, they were in ball possession like 2/3 of the time, mainly because they did little more than pass it back and forth in mid field. This is one of the cases in which statistics don't really tell you who dominated to game.
 
Bludd said:
The close up of that looked really painful.
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I wonder how much of it was deliberate (they were right under the nose of the referee) and how much was just the two of them scrambling around trying to get the ball?
 
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Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
I wonder how much of it was deliberate (they were right under the nose of the referee) and how much was just the two of them scrambling around trying to get the ball?
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Yeah Rooney was definitely trying to get the balls
 
By the way, the Italian Tv showed today that Lehmann, just before the penalty shootout, received a note from Koepke (ex-goalkeeper for Germany, now member of national staff), which he read it throughoutly twice, then hid it in his right sock....and even right before the last penalty (kicked by Cambiasso) when he was already on the goal-line, on the last spare seconds before the ref whistle, he grabbed it from his sock, read it attentively and put it back....most probably Koepke wrote for him the sides he had to defend on each penalty depending on the Argentinian shooter.
 
Crisidelm said:
By the way, the Italian Tv showed today that Lehmann, just before the penalty shootout, received a note from Koepke (ex-goalkeeper for Germany, now member of national staff), which he read it throughoutly twice, then hid it in his right sock....and even right before the last penalty (kicked by Cambiasso) when he was already on the goal-line, on the last spare seconds before the ref whistle, he grabbed it from his sock, read it attentively and put it back....most probably Koepke wrote for him the sides he had to defend on each penalty depending on the Argentinian shooter.
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Ooh, sounds interesting. Do you think that they've been spying on them in training?

As for England, some pride regained with the performance of the ten men after Rooney's dismissal. Portugal were very poor and England created enough chances to win the game even with ten men. I can't see Portugal progressing past the next round if they play anything like they did today. Lampard has cemented his placed as the new Paul Scholes - he either scores goals or does absolutely sod all. Unfortunately, this tournament he did sod all!

No real arguments about the sending off, although I can't understand why the referee didn't award a free kick as Rooney was fouled about three times leading up to the incident. I'll glad to see Sven go (a tournament too late if you ask me) as his bizarre tactical choices really cost us this tournament. When you consider that most other teams have a set formation with which their players are comfortable, but we've tried any number of different combinations and the players obviously weren't at ease with this. Playing Rooney as a lone striker was preposterous frankly as it doesn't suit his strengths. Unfortunately, all our 'superstar' players were poor this tournament so we didn't deserve any success.

Man of the match for me today was Owen Hargreaves - absolutely incredible fitness, dedication to his job and workrate which really showed up Lampard and Gerrard. Credit to Ricardo as well - he's an excellent 'keeper.

I suppose I'd better go and sink a few beers to commiserate! :cry:
 
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