Germany vs. England 4:1. Yeah Baby!

"Soccer is a game for 22 people that run around, play the ball,
and one referee who makes a slew of mistakes, and in the
end Germany always wins." Gary Lineker








Never was this more true than today. But, I content, Germany would have
won, even if the second England had counted. But one after another.
We just played better and smarter than the English. Besides a couple shaky
minutes just before half time, we were in control and goals 3 and 4 were
just perfectly executed.
A couple of thoughts.

• There is no doubt that England scored a second goal.
  How the referee could miss that is beyond me.
  I hope this will kick off a discussion on how to avoid these situations,
  either through technology or a goal referee.
• The referees this World Cup are awful. Argentina scored its first goal
  from a clear offside position.
• The first England goal was sloppy defending by Boateng and Neuer.
  Against Argentina, we can not afford those lapses. Neuer has to work
  on his positioning. He was too much forward on Englands
  second goal as well. He made up for it with a couple good saves and,
  of course, the awesome assist for the 1:0.
• England just doesn't have good goalies.
• Argentina is VERY dangerous, but not unbeatable.

Well, it was a great game and I hope, Germany can continue to play
on that level.

Hand of God, really?

Watching the World Cup today was rather discouraging. First, the good
news, New Zealand tied Italy. Cheers Mate. Then the Brazil vs. Ivory
Coast game. Brazil played very effective and won, but some things still
bother me. First, the second goal was clearly a hand ball by the Brazilian
player. Later, he claimed it was the 'Hand of God' that helped him.
Really! Since when is god in the business of cheating in a sports game?
Of course, the referee didn't see it. Then Kaka gets sent off on
spectacular dive by a Ivory Coast player. This has become a very
disturbing trend. Players don't just dive in the in box anymore, they
fake injury so the other player gets a card. And the bad part is, it works.
The referees at the Cup are clearly overwhelmed. So many yellow and red
cards and the games are not particular rough.

Noooooo!?!?!?!?!

We had a row of thunderstorms coming through last night, which
knocked off my cable and internet. So, it took me some time to
reflect on Germany's loss to Serbia in football yesterday. It was an
early game and I had a couple of friends over for football and
breakfast. It was a nice setting with a not so nice game.
Germany lost and is in real jeopardy to miss the next round.
What went wrong:
1. Klose's yellow-red card. Totally unnecessary. Klose should be
experienced enough to understand that the referee was playing it
loose with the yellow cards. That last tackle was just plain stupid.
2. Podolski. Don't get me started. After missing a ton of good chances
he misses the penalty kick as well. Germany was the better team at the
time and the 1:1 would have giving them another boost. But after the miss
the team seemed deflated.
3. Rest of the team. Badstuber was overwhelmed at times, but he got no
help from the midfield. The offense was trying to carry the ball into the
goal and got tangled up in the Serbia defense. If you have a good position
at the corner of the box, just shoot! You might hit the goal, except
Podolski.

Overall, I liked how the team try to fight back in the second half almost
tying the game. And it makes the math for Germany easy. We basically
reached the knock-out stage already, because from now on, we HAVE
to win every game. And quite frankly, if you want to be considered a top
16 team in the world, you just have to beat Ghana.

At least, we are doing better than England.

World Cup thoughts .......

Didn't see any games live today, but just finished checking out the
summary on TV. Here are the football thoughts of the day.

• Japan stuns Cameroon. So far, the African teams haven't really
  impressed. Ghana got away with a win, but only with a PK gift
  and all the other African teams have either tied or lost their games.
• Italy got lucky, as usual.
• The talk about the ball are getting annoying. I heard the same
  discussions in 2006 and 2002. My advice. Deal with it and stop the
  whining. What your next excuse when your team doesn't
  perform well? That the color of the grass was too green?
• I am glad that the US goalie id fit to play. He was easily the best
  US player on the pitch on Saturday. (Notice that I use the word
  'pitch' rather than 'field'. I am watching too much British football)
• I do notice a lot of empty seats in the stadiums. They should give the
  seats away, if the person promises to break at least 10 of the
  Vuvuzelas :)
  

GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

WOW, Germany played the first game of the World Cup and what a game.
We beat Australia 4-0. Awesome game, besides a shaky beginning, where
the Aussies actually had a good chance to score. The rest of the game,
Germany dominated and the four goals where beautiful executed.
Australia had a bad day and after the red card, unreasonable in my opinion,
they had no chance. Heck, we should have score 2,3 more goals.
My guess is, it won't be as easy against the other members of the group, but
with that kind of performance, Germany doesn't have to fear anybody.













Other thoughts on the World Cup so far:
The noise of the Vuvuzelas is annoying. Watching a game is like listening to
bee swarms zipping around the stadium. It overpowers any other noise that
would come from the fans like drums, chanting, cheering. There is basically
no atmosphere. I know, its suppose to be part of the South African culture,
but couldn't they pick something that wouldn't drive the rest of the world nuts?

The terrible mistake of England's keeper against the US overshadows the fact
that England didn't play that well. It seems like every World Cup, everybody
and their English cousin think that the team should win it, because they have
such a pool of talented players. If they keep playing like this, they won't get
that far. I think they are WAY overrated.

Games are decided by stupid mistakes: England ties with the US based on a
goalie error. Slovenia wins on a goalie error. Serbia looses because they
couldn't keep the hands off the ball.

I am looking forward to watch more football.

Its football time

Normally, in the summer, there is really not much sports to watch.
You got baseball (yawn) and once in a while Olympics games. But every
four years, the football nations come together to play the World Cup and
this year it is played in South Africa. I can still remember collecting and
trading cards of the players as a kid. I remember some of the great games
and some of the more disappointing moments for the German team.
I was too young to realize in 1974 that we won the cup, so 1978 was the first
World Cup I remember following. Not a good start though. The German team
lost in a legendary match against Austria and the tournament was over. The
following cup was in 1982. Although Germany made it into the finals, where
it would loose against Italy. I remember mostly the ghastly game against
Austria (again) and the penalty shootout against France in the semifinals.
Four years later, the games where played in Mexico and again, we lost in the
finals. But then, in 1990, we reached the finals and beat Argentina for the Cup.
I watched the game in a Turkish bar and the place went nuts, when Brehme
shot the penalty. The next two world cups, from a German perspective, where
forgettable. The team was plagued, playing bad football and really not deserving
to play any role in the outcome. It got better in 2002, when we reached the finals
again, but Brasil was the better team that year. I still remember trying to watch the
finals with Jim and Angela on a Sunday morning, only to find out that the local
ABC station decided to air a garden show instead of the biggest TV event in the
world. Only in America.
In 2006, the games came to Germany and the team played great. They finally
adopted a more offensive football style and it served them well until they met
Italy in the semi-finals. We lost the game in overtime, but managed a third place,
which was good considering nobody gave the team any credit.
Well, its football time again and tomorrow is the first German game against
Australia. I hope for a good tournament and of course I believe that Germany
will win the Cup one more time.
And, I will truly enjoy 4 weeks of packed football watching.

Go Germany!!!

iPad

After all the hype for the iPad it finally went on sale last week. Since
there is a Apple store in the mall next door, I decided to take a look.
Went I went into the store, it was crowded. but they had enough iPads
around for me to find one. The first impression, its a big iPod touch.
The hardware looks sleek and the screen looks sharp as well. I tested a
coupe applications and they execute blasting fast. I tried the Safari
browser and web pages are loading quickly. If you like the iPod touch,
you will like the hardware of this device as well.
So, did I buy one? ............. Nope, and here is why.
It's not a laptop replacement. You still need a laptop to sync and load
all your stuff. No camera, no flash, no USB port. I can see using one, when
you are traveling, but I am not, so it has no practical use for me.
But, I heard that Apple already announced an OS upgrade and I am sure
the next generation iPads will be even better. Maybe I can create a need
for the second generation. ;)