135 replies to this topic

[Nick Kaufman]

Spain: THe only team able to waste time on the opponent's penalty box.

[MentalDisabldLst]

I love that Spain isn't gratuitously faking injuries, a la Portugal, to try and take time off the clock. Good on them.

[CaptainLaddie]

Yahhhoooooooooo!

Goodbye, Deutschland!

[Rossox]

Viva Espania!!!

[ifmanis5]

Spain deserved that one. Was expecting some more action.


Go Oranje in the Final.

[Rossox]

Very impressed with Spain's D.

[Lose Remerswaal]

I agree it's not exciting, but that's not what I was arguing against. Lose said that Spain was playing for penalty kicks. They aren't.

I didn't really mean that, but they were being way too tentative. See what happened when they played it to the box on a corner? Instead of those "two passes out and hope to set something up", they put it in there and GOOOOOOOOL.

Much stronger 2nd half for Espana, and I'm glad to see them moving on.

[Tony C]

beautiful game.

the Germans really lost me with their comments about the Argentinian character -- you'd think they'd learn to avoid that sort of thing.


viva espana!

[Nick Kaufman]

you really think Spain is boring? I'm never going to claim soccer expertise, but I find Spain to be the most fun team to watch in the tournament (perhaps along with Argentina).

I root for Spain, but I don't think they ve played their best this tourney. They can be very entertaining, but there have been large swaths of time where they just weren't entertaining; the first half today for example. I also think they could have played more positive.

It's a bit of a downer that the two sides reaching the final have ooze of offensive talent and yet it doesn't seem they re going to offer as an exciting match as they can.

[cjdmadcow]

That was such a better game once Puyol had scored, shame it didn't come until the 74rd minute.

[SoxFanInCali]

I didn't really mean that, but they were being way too tentative. See what happened when they played it to the box on a corner? Instead of those "two passes out and hope to set something up", they put it in there and GOOOOOOOOL.

Much stronger 2nd half for Espana, and I'm glad to see them moving on.

Well, if you keep trying the same thing every time you have a corner, the defense will likely figure it out. If you vary things, you might catch the defense napping. Puyol came in completely unmarked and got the header.

Generally, the Germans are stronger in the air, but they fell asleep there, and it cost them the game.

[Apisith]

It was always going to be the first team that scored who won it because both teams are exceptional with a lead.

[Morgan's Magic Snowplow]

The Spanish center backs and defensive organization were great. To face a team that had scored four in its previous two games and hold them to one real chance (the Kroos shot) is pretty amazing. Germany really didn't have many answers in this game, and it could easily have been 2-0 or 3-0.

Edited by Morgan's Magic Snowplow, 07 July 2010 - 03:35 PM.

[Lose Remerswaal]

Well, if you keep trying the same thing every time you have a corner, the defense will likely figure it out. If you vary things, you might catch the defense napping. Puyol came in completely unmarked and got the header.

Generally, the Germans are stronger in the air, but they fell asleep there, and it cost them the game.

Puyol is Spanish for Pujols.

[mikeford]

Germany was definitely hurt by no Mueller. Feel like their counter would've been far superior with him on the pitch, even if his replacement(s) had probablly the best German chances today.

[Maalox]

Spain was the better team. Their defense was very good. And their ability to change direction on the ball in tight traffic is truly impressive. Attack problems that the Germans have been solving by passing the ball across, away from or out of coverage, the Spaniards were able to solve either by passing the ball or simply changing direction on the dribble. Like someone mentioned, they can just zig and zag around your box, with possession, and there isn't much you can do about it.

The Germans have been overpowering when 1) passing into seams and springing people, 2) in set pieces and 3) on the counter when the have the lead. There were just not many seams today, so what the Germans needed to do once they fell behind was attack with long shots to try to pick up deflections and corners. Had they been able to get a few more corners, with their size they'd probably have managed to fish out a goal off a set play. (And give the German D credit. Spain's goal came off a corner kick too.) But right down through extra time the Germans were playing too cute, looking for an opening that just wasn't there.

That scoring play with Puyol was excellent. I presume it's something they've diagrammed and practiced countless times, because I watched on the big screen and when Puyol comes into the picture at right, the ball is in the air and he is still a good 25-30 feet from where he heads the ball, and he's fucking flying. So he knows where the ball is going to be. He's the man on that play. Anyway it was something to see. I think it's essentially the same thing they ran with him early in the first half, where he was too low under the kick and headed it several feet over the goal.

I'd like to see the Dutch win Sunday but I don't see how they top a performance like those small greasy Spaniards gave today.

[Nick Kaufman]

[nvalvo]

Did that just happen?

[Nick Kaufman]

From the look of the unis, it's probably after the 2008 final.

[nvalvo]

From the look of the unis, it's probably after the 2008 final.

Right, and that (as I just noticed) it says Euro2008 on the wall above the sponsor logos.

[Nick Kaufman]

[God's Cop]

it´s trochowski for müller.

i would have preferred the more offensive minded toni kroos.

Looks like you won't be getting that 4th star after all.

[ossie schreckengost]

congratulations to spain, who where the better team.

we were outplayed most of the time. though it was a kick in the gonads to lose on a header by fucking puyol.

i´m incredibly sad for our wonderful young team. not to win it all (and i´m incredibly sad for me, going out in the semis, once again).

but 4 years ago it was much harder to accept than today. today spain has been the better team.

maybe we were headed there from the start, when spain decided to display a 5 man midfield, and our jogi (whom i don´t blame) decided to go with troche instead of toni kroos.

for us, it was a disappointing ending of a great wc-campaign, the most beautiful german football of my lifetime.

--
i wish there was no playoff for 3rd place. it´s a disgrace and a bad joke to both sides who went out in the semis. i won´t watch it, the way i didn´t 4 years ago.

--

and as much as i like nils and the old-world-harshness he´s bringing to the discourse about football on sosh:


spain, i implore you: beat the dutch.

the dutch being the only team in the world i hate with a passion (dutch football, not dutch people) more than anybody else.

as i maybe said before:

versus the dutch i´d happpily support the italians, the argies, franco madrid, brazil, barca, the fc bayern münchen, chelsea, borussia dortmund, mfu, leverkusen, the arse, wolfsburg, hoffenheim, west scum united, 4.25 sports group, red bull leipzig, crystal palace, feyenoord rotterdam, and the tsg fürstenhagen, and, alas, spain.

evviva espana!

-----------

still, i´m sad.

[SoxFanInCali]

Nils doesn't even like most of the Dutch squad. Too many Ajax twats on the team.

At least he's got van Bronckhorst wearing the armband, and Kuyt and van Persie doing well.

[ossie schreckengost]

Nils doesn't even like most of the Dutch squad. Too many Ajax twats on the team.

At least he's got van Bronckhorst wearing the armband,

when capitano gio made that incredible goal vs the urus, i thought of nils, and his history and his friendship with that man (who as a footballer and as a sportsman is the exakt polar opposite of the robbens&van bommels in his very team).

if - god forbid - the dutch will win the final, that final´s saving grace will be giovanni van bronckhorst, in his very last professional game, ever, going out in a blaze of glory, winning it all.
which, on the face of it, is the dream of every single boy in this world who ever loved this game, and used to play it.




edit: spelling.

Edited by ossie schreckengost, 07 July 2010 - 06:21 PM.

[ossie schreckengost]

i´m so sad...


beethoven, and rwfassbinder´s ex-wife with incredibly sad lyrics, and in the end it´s the internationale, communistwise....

[accidentalsuccess]

germany missed Mueller for counters and set pieces but they REALLY missed Lahm pushing forward to help distribute and serve. I think he had one serious foray into the attacking third in the first half. Spain gets all the credit for forcing him to stay home and outplaying germany in general. I thought it was a very, very good game for the casual and more tactical-minded fans both (even w/o tons of scoring chances).

kudos for the refs "letting them play" and the players keeping their feet (for the most part), too.

[ossie schreckengost]

kudos for the refs "letting them play" and the players keeping their feet (for the most part), too.

the ossiette is fond to say that - after those catastrophical reffing in the early rounds - the nazi-fifa did clamp down on the refs, letting the boys play. and i guess she is right...

we had only 1 ill reffed game, versus serbia (which we didn´t lose because of the ref. still it was our seminal game. we did display there that we´re unable to come back from falling behind).

when you loook at the games of the elimination-rounds, there was not a single ref who was detrimental to that hallowed " let the boys play" (funnyly, if you reallly let the boys play, they´re playing accordingly to the rules. they get "it". maybe not van bommel, but most of them do).

i don´t know who´ll ref the final (i hope it will be NOT howard webb), i just hope he will let the boys play.

funny thing is: the more "hands off" the ref is, the less dirty the players will play.

[MentalDisabldLst]

funny thing is: the more "hands off" the ref is, the less dirty the players will play.

I was surprised by that yesterday - I had assumed that if players saw that contact wasn't getting calls, they'd escalate how much contact they created. Perhaps the Italians would. But instead they just kept going on, and I saw maybe one complaint/appeal to the ref all game. The flow was excellent.

That game should be an example to those who don't like football or the WC... maybe not as flashy and high-scoring as you could ask for, but a really well-played match on both sides.

[cromulence]

I was surprised by that yesterday - I had assumed that if players saw that contact wasn't getting calls, they'd escalate how much contact they created. Perhaps the Italians would. But instead they just kept going on, and I saw maybe one complaint/appeal to the ref all game. The flow was excellent.

That game should be an example to those who don't like football or the WC... maybe not as flashy and high-scoring as you could ask for, but a really well-played match on both sides.

Meh. It was well-played, but I found it pretty damn boring. Germany was in a defensive shell all game long, and as a result even though Spain dominated possession they didn't really have tons of good chances. It was a lot of midfield play and a few close calls before the goal. Not terrible but certainly not a game I would reference if I was trying to make someone like the sport.

[Infield Infidel]

when capitano gio made that incredible goal vs the urus, i thought of nils, and his history and his friendship with that man (who as a footballer and as a sportsman is the exakt polar opposite of the robbens&van bommels in his very team).

if - god forbid - the dutch will win the final, that final´s saving grace will be giovanni van bronckhorst, in his very last professional game, ever, going out in a blaze of glory, winning it all.
which, on the face of it, is the dream of every single boy in this world who ever loved this game, and used to play it.

Let's just hope gio doesn't pull a zidane, the last guy whose last game was as captain in a WC final.

[MentalDisabldLst]

Are you kidding? That would be awesome!

I still get a kick out of recalling the Zidane headbutt.

[Tony C]

I was surprised by that yesterday - I had assumed that if players saw that contact wasn't getting calls, they'd escalate how much contact they created. Perhaps the Italians would. But instead they just kept going on, and I saw maybe one complaint/appeal to the ref all game. The flow was excellent.

That game should be an example to those who don't like football or the WC... maybe not as flashy and high-scoring as you could ask for, but a really well-played match on both sides.

Meh. It was well-played, but I found it pretty damn boring. Germany was in a defensive shell all game long, and as a result even though Spain dominated possession they didn't really have tons of good chances. It was a lot of midfield play and a few close calls before the goal. Not terrible but certainly not a game I would reference if I was trying to make someone like the sport.

Agree with MDL and disagree with cromulence. as the 'target' audience for those obsessed with expanding soccer in the U.S. (which, by the way, I think that obsession is a real turn off to the rest of us), I've been fully won over over the years by the athleticism, fluidity, and high drama of soccer. It's obviously not a terribly strategic game, but it's wonderful. What has been a real turn off has been the awful refereeing which seemed to turn too many games into a random result depending on who got lucky on a few key calls, and, in fact, that bad reffing is precisely why there is so much diving and whining as there's a good chance it'll work. Bad reffing is a part of all sports, but there are limits to where the key plays of too many matches were ref calls and it kind makes the whole thing seem pointless.

But the game yesterday was, to me, the ideal. Spain played an incredibly sophisticated, high level of soccer. Dominated Germany, but Germany obviously had incredible firepower on the counterattack so the drama stayed there all 90+ minutes. To see Spain's skill level in a match umarred by bad ref calls, by dives, and by player whining/fake injuries was a joy. Sure, it wasn't up and down as it might have been with Argentina, but I think the push to expand soccer has been harmed by the sense that scoring (or lack thereof) is the problem. Really, that's a bit of a canard. The baseball and hockey purists prefer low scoring games in their sports for the same reason that low-scoring soccer is so dramatic. And it's not like there are so many scores in football, either. 7 points for a TD distorts it somewhat, but I think most NFL games average 2 or 3 TDs per team, so again not night and day different. Basketball (the most international of American sports) is the only one that is high-scoring and, ironically, it actually shares a lot of the structure of soccer. But if a low-scoring game whose drama is on the big lead-up to just 1 or 2 climactic goals is marred by the fact that so many of those climactic moments are a joke, then I think it'll turn off a lot of viewers who aren't born and bred to it. And there's nothing wrong with that (again, don't understand the insistence that it should be globally accepted, there's something vaguely imperialist about the desire to shove it down everyone's throat), sports are sports...lots of fun ones and a debate about superiority is pretty lame. Hurling is amazing, for example, but I never hear the Irish putting down anyone who doesn't appreciate it.

But, point being, if there is a desire to even further globalize soccer to places like the U.S., Canada, Australia, Ireland, etc, where it's not so popular, the Germany-Spain match in my limited experience is far better than some of the joke games that have been played this WC.

[cromulence]

Lots of text

I totally agree that the game was officiated extremely well, and it was very refreshing to see a lack of diving and time wasting. I guess my less-than-sophisticated view is that games that are more back and forth are more exciting. I recognize this probably comes from a lack of knowledge about the sport - most casual baseball fans find a pitchers' duel boring as hell, but the diehards can appreciate a pitcher executing his pitches flawlessly and making elite hitters look foolish. I suppose there is an aspect of that in the Spain-Germany game.

I really REALLY wish Muller hadn't been suspended. I think (hope) that Germany would have been a bit more positive if they had him. To go along with goal-line tech, there needs to be a review process for cards that actually has a chance of doing justice. There is no way in hell that handball was a yellow card. It's really unfair that he couldn't play.

[Dummy Hoy]

I really REALLY wish Muller hadn't been suspended. I think (hope) that Germany would have been a bit more positive if they had him. To go along with goal-line tech, there needs to be a review process for cards that actually has a chance of doing justice. There is no way in hell that handball was a yellow card. It's really unfair that he couldn't play.

I think your overall point about cards and reviews is a good one, but as much as I liked Germany's squad, I really don't think they would have been "more positive" with Muller in the mix. Spain played their game, Germany was unable to take the ball away from them and counter, so I'm not sure how big of a difference Muller would have made.

[cromulence]

I think your overall point about cards and reviews is a good one, but as much as I liked Germany's squad, I really don't think they would have been "more positive" with Muller in the mix. Spain played their game, Germany was unable to take the ball away from them and counter, so I'm not sure how big of a difference Muller would have made.

You're probably right - I guess my point is only valid if Germany made the conscious decision to play defensively and hope for some counterattack chances. And if they did, maybe having Muller would have changed that decision. And even if they weren't more positive, at least their counters may have gone better.