Algarve 2008 natterings (r)

Swedish press talks about how Sweden dominated the first half, then again, Swedish press can be very liberal with the truth.

 

My guess is that the hearty breakfast of Swedish meatballs did the Swedes in ....

 

Whoa -- Germany:Norway 0:2. My guess is they had too many Bratwurst's?

 

I think she's about 28/29. One more WC, maybe. She's one of my favorite players, a very low key star player, not easily ruffled, always calm. Her flank runs into the midfield and penalty area are a thing of beauty.

 

The funny thing is that Germany is the WC winner of both 2003 and 2007, but probably will find itself in 2nd place in the next ranking. In the last ranking the difference between Germany and US was not that big, and FIFA gives good points for Algarve cup. Germany missed each year many points , just because of Algarve cup.

As of Germany oldies, I am worry at the very first place on retiring of Lingor. I know Prinz is our best ever player, but a German football team before anything needs a creative engine at the midfield. I don't see any comparable replacement for Lingor. If you look at total rhythms of German team in the last 4 years (not just goals), you will see the main flow of German continuous attacks depends on Lingor moves. She integrates her playing with team, like a main joint in a mechanism.

She is 31 old now, and I think the team will be in trouble once she leaves.

 

I agree somewhat, however, when both Wiegmann and Meinert retired, I also thought it was downhill from there. They were floundering for a while but managed to pull themselves back together again. Germany seems to have a history of great midfielders and I am sure they are currently grooming the new crop. Luckily, both Wiegmann and Meinert are still involved as coaches, and I think the few young players I've been able to see so far (Laudehr, Bajmiraj, Krahn, etc.) seem promising.

It'll be exiting to see how Neid manages and how WC 2011 will pan out for us.

 

Now this is way beyond Algarve, but tonight is a bit of a football night, what with all the Euro qualifiers....

Ahhhh, Maren! She was the best. One of my biggest regrets is that I never managed to see her play live. She was so good, in fact, that I've never found a domestic appliance impressive enough to name after her.

 

I saw her play live in the WC Final 2003 against Sweden. Meinert is one of my all time favorite players. I think I've got a thing for midfielders: Meinert, Wiegmann, Lingor, Garefrekes.

Still, Prinz barreling down the flanks towards goal in 2003 was quite the impressive sight!

 

Midfielders?? Me too! The 2003 World Cup was a cracker for that, with Wiegmann and Meinert. I still get happy when I see them in the background as coaches these days. But that final really got me into trouble, watching it with a bunch of angry Swedes . In fact, after that my girlfriend insisted we name our kitchen fan Nia, because "she sucks". But I digress.

I'm quite partial to defenders too, but it was still as a midfielder in Potsdam that Ariane Hingst won me over. Though I have to stick my neck out here and say that I think Lingor is a tad over-rated *duck and cover*.

 

Know what you mean about Lingor. She can be very smooth, though, and sometimes reminds me a little of Meinert. Lingor, on occasion, has a very light, almost Brazilian (though not flashy) touch, and her runs can be brilliant when she brings her A game (never mind her free kicks & corner kicks). When I was worrying about the Quarterfinals against North Korea last WC, I saw a photo of Meinert sitting in the stands during a North Korea game taking notes.

I went: Oh, alright. We're winning this one, no prob.

Btw, how's Hingst's Swedish? I saw a vid of her babbling on. It sounded good enough to me considering I don't speak a word. Oh, one, Hexdansen (thanks, boys & girls!).

 

Hingst's Swedish is quite... charming. Swedish and German are very close so she picked up vocab quickly and learned at a very early stage to swear in frustration. However, more advanced things like thundering at the ref that "The entire ball has to be over the line" she still takes in German. Her pronunciation is German, of course, but you can still get what she's saying without too much effort. The positive thing about her speaking Swedish is that she actually breathes every now and again (I find her such a motor mouth in German that she loses me entirely).

Oh, one funny thing is that her German grammar leaks in occasionally. For instance, there's a phrase "Från början" (from the beginning) which in her version turned out as "Från början an" ("Von Anfang an"). Those seperable verbs, eh?

Again, I should get another hobby. But what else is there apart from football and languages?