Didn't see that. If he did, it's far from clear. (didn't look like it wouldn't be something he'd do, from the looks of his face)
Typical stuff from Germany and Holland, respectively. Under pressure, Germany gets it done, and Holland bottle it. Two very professional outings by Germany, who along with Spain, have to be favorites at this point. Holland need a miracle to get in. Too bad for them.
The way Germany played, it looked like the Netherlands fielded a randomly selected assortment of players who, at the last minute, had to try and play like a team. It's confidence quickly sapped, Oranje had to rely on occassional spurts of individual brilliance.
Incredible to think The Netherlands still have a chance to qualify despite losing 2 games straight. Demonstrates how winning and losing is better than constantly drawing.
I am hugely disappointed in that Holland display. They looked utterly uninterested until RVP's goal. After that there was a sense of urgency, but it was quickly squelched. Clearly Germany deserves a good deal of urgency-squelching credit, but there were times when Sneijder and Huntelaar and Rafa VdV were wandering around as if they had a 2 goal cushion. I'm quite perplexed -- I really thought they were going to come out strong in this tournament. Italy has already taken great strides from the debacle in South Africa, and even France looked more up for it. But as runners-up who were globally derided for playing an awful WC Final, and as a team that stormed through qualifying, I was hoping for more. Even the brilliant flash and rapid burn out of their Euro'08 campaign would be better than this. Congrats to Germany, though. They look very serious about it.
Great game. That was more like the Germany we wanna see In the first half Germany was clearly better, they blocked everything! And again Netherlands can't score....well their problem But of course Netherlands have to win 2:0 or sth. like that against Portugal and Germany defeats Denmark then everything is under control
yep , if holland win 2-0 against portugal and germany win 1-0 against denmark then both germany and holland will qualify for the next round , same as the first group every team here have a chance to qualify aswell
just trying to confirm for Holland to advance they need to win by 2 goals vs. Portgual and hope Denmark loses right?
yeah but I could actually see Germany intentionally playing out a draw with the Danes to eliminate Holland.. well maybe not that, but I'm pretty sure Germany would love to eliminate Holland & Portgual at this stage as opposed to Denmark.. I don't mean that in a disrespectful way to the Danes but Holland were seen as genuine contenders in this tourney...
No. Germany will play to win. But it won't matter, because unless Holland suddenly learn how to play as a team and defend, Portugal will not give up 2 unanswered goals to them.
Well, if as many of us suspect Germany wins this competition the only consolation is that almost all its major players have foreign names.
Tonight they have proven the opposite (same as it's been the case against Portugal after the 1:0). But well, Mr. Löw still doesn't see any need to bring perfect counter-attacking players like Reus, Götze or Schürrle after the interval in order to replace Podolski. Pretty weird. Thankfully for Germany, it didn't affect the results of both games. As expected, the German team clearly improved in playful aspect tonight and deservedly won the match against a very predictable Dutch squad, only facing some problems for 15 minutes in each half). Great goals from Gomez (who belied his critics) after also great assists from Schweinsteiger! Quite interesting that despite 2 wins, Germany can still get eliminated in the case of a defeat against Denmark (if Portugal wins against Holland).
Yeah Müller, Neuer, Lahm, Schwinsteiger sounding very foreign to me. But seriously, thats not surprising, considering how many people immigrated to Germany during the 50s and 60s. At least most of them were born in Germany (like Özil, Gomez), were born in former German territories (Klose) or came to Germany when they were very young (Podolski at the age of 6) so I don't think thats a problem anyway. Right now Germany has a problem with players who were born in Germany but decide to play for other countries (Sahin, Ekici, Chandler) than vice versa.
Why is that a consolation if some players have foreign names? Our British Royal Family has a German family name Mountbatten, they just changed it to Windsor to sound more English.
I actually think Portugal have a very strong chance of cracking Netherlands bad defence. As long as Ronaldo doesn't keep hitting Warsaw. It will be a very tough game.