It's heart breaking to see him leave on a sour note like this. For some reason it reminded me of Hao Haidong.
My prediction: he resigns for 2 years to be with kids, Germany will make Assistant-Coach Joachim Loew as the real coach (for continuity and the resumation of Klinsi-tactics). Klinsi will then look for options.
Kids are still very young (don't know exact age). Joachim Loew hasn't really had a glittering career...coached at Fenerbahce, VfB Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, FC Tirol Innsbruck, Austria Wien. But Klinsmann didn't have one PERIOD. Loew has been the tactical brain to Klinsmann's charisma and daring. I think that Oliver Bierhoff may take Klinsmann's charisma and daring part. But other options are out there too. Christoph Daum, Thomas Schaaf of Werder Bremen, Juergen Klopp of FSV Mainz are all good possiblities, they have a lot of Klinsi in them, especially Klopp, who has taken a nothing team in Mainz and made them one of the most exciting in die Bundesliga. But if they hire Rehhagel/Hitzfeld/Matthaeus/Sammer, I will go on a personal rampage.
I loved how the commentators were so shocked by this, the reality is that Zidane has always been a combo of physicality and finesse and that he is an extremely emotional player. This act isn't out of left field, it is pretty consistent with much of his career, the only difference is the importance of the match. It is almost a given that Materrnazi made some racist statement about Zidane's background. I also like this concept about how "Zidane lost France the game." While Zidane would have been 1 of the 5 spot kick takers, it is highly unlikey under any circumstances that Treziguet wouldn't have taken a penalty, and thus you get the same result. Oh well, overall a pretty crappy World Cup, it isn't one of the worst, but it was very forgettable. Now the next major international competition is....Asian Cup 2007, Zhongguo Jiayou!
I wouldn't say it's a crappy WC. I think it's a decent WC. Lots of goals were scored and some were of very high quality (Argentina vs. Serbia, Joe Cole's, Maxi's, and Lahm's come to mind). Great defending (France and Italy), great goalkeeping (Ricardo, Kahn/Lehman), and of course some emotional and shocking moments (Rooney and Zizou's send offs).
In fact it'd be an above average WC had France won it. But a lot of people are disappointed by Brazil whose performance usually accounts for half of the entertainment value of the whole WC. Add poor performance by "Ingerland" on top and you have an absolutely crappy WC for Chengbo.
Funny how 3rd place has gotten people in Germany in a tizzy. Shows how young and crappy our team was. Now I would like to think we have a great chance for the Euros and 2010. Holland is still good and young. Ingerland...haha don't get me started. This World Cup was good...would have been better with a French win...but it would outright be great if the attacking Germans bucked the "4-5-1" trend with their own brand of total "attacking" football and smashed the "4-5-1" forever.
I don't see how you guys can call it anything more than average/below average. Whenever you play so many games in such a short amount of time, there are bound to be at least 1 or 2 classic goals (and there were) and 1 or 2 great games 9and there were). There are also bound to be crap referee decisions and bad/ugly/boring games. The problem was that the majority of games either included very bad refereeing decisions or boring games or both. It has absolutely nothing to do with the teams that went out, but the lack of decent games until the last few games. I just think longterm this isn't a very memorable World Cup. As for the Asian Cup, I was thinking more the likes of Korea, Japan, Iran, and Australia, X.
Is this video for real? Do teams actually have this kind of training? http://usa.worldcupblog.org/group-e/secret-italian-training-video.html