World Cup 2010 - Quarter-finals **spoilers**

drunkenmaster said:
Germany have been phenomenal frankly, they have had easy teams to beat, England had easier teams to beat and did worse, so not sure how the "excuse" as to how Germany were so good carries any weight.

Spains defence is dodgey, Ramos is utterly awful defensively, Pique has never been good, was just not really tested in a truly fantastic Barcelona team in his first "big" year, this year the team has been less good and Pique has been shown up more, he was awful throughout, not just the penalty that was given for something just about all CB's do nowdays, but he was stupidly obvious with it, Capdeville is not a good left back by any stretch of the immagination and Puyol has always been prone to mistakes but great at recovering them. Casillas seems to be dropping the ball and Spain have had trouble scoring past the Swiss, Chile, Honduras and Portugal, for which other than the Swiss, all have fairly poor defences.

Not sure where the idea that Spain have a better chance of scoring against maybe the best defence in the competition than Germany, the highest scoring team by miles, has against an average(at best) defence. Spain HAVE to go up 2-3 gears to beat the current form Germany, because currently Spain are playing worse than Argentina were, and have as shakey a defence(ie none existant right back, one iffy CB and a slightly nervy looking keeper).
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I think as long as Germany can keep David Villa out of the game then they'll find the game against the Spanish to be a cake walk. Where are Spain's goals going to come from if their top scorer isn't allowed into the game? I think this is what Germany are good at. They stopped Messi today pretty much in his tracks, there were also 2 or 3 players covering him when he was anywhere near the ball the Germans just took it. Schweinsteiger was excellent throughout and yet again Klose did a lot of tracking back to help out in the midfield.

I wouldn't call Spain's 2008 Euro a fluke, but I think this time, against this German side they will enter the game as underdogs for sure. I think Low has got his tactics perfectly, they always look like they have good numbers in defence but then they can soon turn those numbers into attackers and the speed in which they counter attack is just frightening at times, they can have 9 men behind the ball and then suddenly you've got Muller, Ozil, Podolski, Klose, Schweinsteiger, Lahm and Khedira in the opposition half.

Think the yellow was for the accidental handball but I can't remember fully. I do remember Messi handballing it to a much higher degree right in front of the ref directly before the Muller handball and the ref didn't do anything.

skippi90 said:
An utterly pathetic yellow card. Gave for handball when it was Messi who handled.
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Ahh, it was, totally disgraceful call by the ref, especially the fact that precious Messi actually had the ball run down the length of his arm from his shoulder down to his hand and then it bounced and hit Muller on the top of the arm by the shoulder. Shocking call, I hope Germany appeal against the card.
 
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Spain's new manager, I dunno, just seems to be changing things for the sake of changing things. THe teams switching to 2 DM's or a 4-5-1 are doing worse, they are generally playing 4-5-1 or 2 dm's to compensate for having a crap DM in there basically(Melo/Busquets) at the expense of their offensive game. Podolski, Muller, Klose is experience with pace, power, inteligence and workrate all thrown in somewhere, its a truly outstanding 3 upfront and the team only has one defensive midfield and is balance all around.

Spain are playing a fairly poor Alonso/Busquets, sacrificing so much attacking potency, which is by FAR their strongest part of their game while Germany are better balanced and are generally a defensively strong team to start out with. Germany have the more attacking side, while being stronger defensively, and Spain stupidly are playing defensively which is their weakness. Their front 3 of, ignoring TOrres who has been horrific, Villa, Iniesta and, one of Pedro, Navas or Silva, all 3 of whom have no delivery, inteligence or anything but a bit of pace. It lacks the experience, quality, ability of the German front three with a worse central midfield and a worse defence.

You change that around, and make it an offensive midfield of Xavi, Fabregas, Alonso in holding(did Senna retire, get injured or just not picked, shame he's not there, they desparately need him, two guys to do the same job not as well right now is laughable) and I guess Silva and Iniesta on the wings and you suddenly have a faster moving team in terms of getting the ball forward, attacking on the break more inteligently and just being a far better unit in midfield and upfront. But it really doesn't look like the manager will change anything. THey've struggled since the first game and haven't significantly changed anything, infact Torres started as a sub in the first game and was so bad they dropped Villa to the wing and started him in the rest of the games.

I do think he might finally drop Torres from starting, but I doubt he'll move away from two DM's and that will be Spains undoing.
 
Germany have been immense.

Really impressed by them.

I also love the arguement that the media / pundits keep coming out with that "well they're not very good players but they're a good team".

I'd say they like most international sides have a few weaker players, but on the whole are a fantasticly talented team.
 
I still find it hilarious Mark Laurenson (or whatever his name is) said that only 2 or so of the German team were England quality. Then Germany proceeded to smack England. :D
 
I really like the way the Germans are playing - they fully deserve where they are but on the other hand........

Argentina where awful, I mean simply terrible once they got 2/3 of the way up the pitch (and then their midfielders where too high up supporting the attach when the Germans countered, if the Germans were more accurate they could have won by 7 if not more.

Messi had a pretty quiet game (he was doing stuff, but in the areas which werent going to really hurt Germany, majority of Argentina's shots where from 30 yards + (and only one or two of those were even close)

the thing is that imo (and maybe its horse dung lol) when the scores were "tied" , ie during the phase before and after England's ghost goal, the whole German team looked mentally shaken, if Spain can do that again , they COULD completely fall apart (remember the ghost goal was before 1/2 time), of course Germany have had two good wins since those moments and scored 6 goals (ie England and Argentina wins), so their confidence could (and maybe should be) incredible now - but thats what disapppointed me about Argentina the most yesterday, they just didnt put pressure on the ball all over the park until way too late

Credit where credit is due though, Germany are playing incredibly and look like they could be set for years with such a young and talented side.

Spain were absolutely awful against Paraguay, their midfield passing was attrocious (maybe credit to Paraguay for that), but they really need to get more lethal infront of goal, Germany seem to nearly score with every decent chance they get, Spain seem to need 4 to score 1
 
Margaret said:
I still find it hilarious Mark Laurenson (or whatever his name is) said that only 2 or so of the German team were England quality. Then Germany proceeded to smack England. :D
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During the England-Algeria game, his co-commentator said something about "That happened right under the linesman's nose" and Lawro says "Big nose".

WTF?
 
Germany have been excellent, their balance between control and discipline and flair when going forward is very good. It seems as though all their players are capable of a rigid defensive structure and organisation but they are all so technically good that they can go forward and add something special, e.g. Schweinsteiger drifting through Argentina, Podolski and his brilliant shooting technique, Muller being generally amazing, Lahm is excellent in adding to the attack with very accurate crosses. Maybe Ozil is the exception by being a bit lazy defensively, but the rest work so hard that they can allow for it, especially with Klose constantly hassling the defenders to very good effect, he regularly gets a good tackle in or pressurises defenders into losing the ball, something which I think is overlooked.

Overall, it seems like a talented set of induviduals that are dedicated enough to put in the work as a unit, a little like Brazil with the main difference being they had two DMs who weren't particularly good going forward, Germany don't have that, all their midfield and attack can play, there are very few weaknesses in the team. Very impressive
 
I watched some of the match again earlier and Muller was really hard done by to get booked for the handball, an Argentine does a blatant intentional handball 6-7mins into the match and the referee gives him nothing for it.

Inconsistent refereeing strikes again.
 
vonhelmet said:
During the England-Algeria game, his co-commentator said something about "That happened right under the linesman's nose" and Lawro says "Big nose".

WTF?
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I think it was him who called Maradona a "fan in a suit" and although probably true, he himself is just a fan with a mic.
He says literally whatever pops into his head with no ounce of professionalism or thought. He has also convinced himself that he's funny and so were treated to his attempts at humour.
I realise commentators will always divide opinion and be more popular with some people than others - but the guy is clearly out of his depth. He ruins matches.
 
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