The line being spun is that they just wanted to "get on with coaching" but the referee was too heavy handed......er, yes of course .

Nothing to do with a fairly vitriolic footballing rivalry between the two nations and an obviously fractious and tense German team who were yet again not delivering .

Still, Ballack pulled them out of the do-do when it mattered.

I expect Schweini and Kuranyi to start on Thursday - back to the tried and trusted first team. Something has to be done about the defence but I'm not sure what the options are . If nothing else, this whole sorry mess shows just exactly how valuable Bernd Scheider was/is.

An amazing free kick from Ballack. The best shot was the super slo-mo showing his face as he shot and then when he saw it hit the back of the net. Amazing the way it went from complete and absolute concentration to total joy

According to the BBC Italy and France if they draw might have to face a penatly shoot-out to decide who comes 3rd!

No, they've ruled it out. There are so many permutations that it might come down to 'co-efficient', whatever that might mean (I may be wrong, but I take it to mean something to do with their qualifying results and the points per game that each team gained)

I did think it would be daft...anyway feel Italy will win but Romania get the result against Holland.

I can see Italy going through, they never go out in the group stages of anything, no matter how badly they play

Italy 1 up against 10 men France and Toni could have scored 2/3 goals!

Pirlo is out of a potential 1/4 final if Italy get through.

2-0. I almost said game over and then I remembered Sunday .

Still, who's not had the luck of the draw? That'd be Spain, wouldn't it? But I suppose that was always going to be the case in the group opposite C.

I fancy Spain to win...their attacking play is more of a threat and 2 key Italy players out....

However Spain seem to bottle it in the knockout stages (like against France in WC 06) whilst Italy do know how to win these games.

Croatia,Portgual and Holland to join them in the semis.

What would make it much more interesting is if the teams were drawn for the 1/4 finals rather than knowing their route to the final

quote:

Originally posted by AndyCardiff:
What would make it much more interesting is if the teams were drawn for the 1/4 finals rather than knowing their route to the final

Indeed. The really odd thing about this draw is of course that the two halves are split until the final.

Having the three QF's decided so far look like being terrific in theory - not a duff game there .

It will be a sad day for the game if any player goes out for the quarters in a negative frame of mind though. It has happened, I'm sure, but it's still sad it should happen

OK. Here we go again. The sharp end :

The bad news: The only open play goalscorer is injured. Frings is injured. The coach is banned. The strikers are out of form and not on good terms. The goalkeeper is ropy. Ditto the defence.

The good news......er, Schweini's ban has finished? Lamm is playing well? The team are much taller than Portugal? It's almost a home game? There's a contingency plan in case Herr Flick gets sent off as well?

Clear win for Germany natch .

PS - From this morning's press:

Scolari has a flawless record in international quarter-finals, playing three and winning three - all of them against England, under Sven-Goran Eriksson.......

Agreed, it's not looking great for Germany, but out of adversity... as the saying goes.After all, who'd have thought Croatia would beat Germany in the first place? I'm confident they can get a win out of the game and won't despair until the game's over

Something to put the tournament into perspective..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/euro_2008/netherlands/7463362.stm

Sad news and it must be hard to think about playing football soon after losing someone so close.

He's done very well in this tournament, you'd never believe he's the same player who had such inconsistent form for Chelsea this season.

Sad news though

Portugal played some good "pretty passing" football but did not defend well and the Germans as is often the case produced when it mattered and actually looked pretty comfortable at times.

Cracking 1st goal and 2 easy free headers.

Why do I get the feeling we will have an Italy/Germany final?

quote:

Originally posted by Super_horns:
Why do I get the feeling we will have an Italy/Germany final?

You'll have me to thank for this as it was me who suggested it!

I had a Germany vs Italy final too .

Thankfully, normal service seems to have been resumed . What a terrific game. It showed exactly why they started as favourites. They took on everything the Portuguese had and gave back even more.

What a difference Schweini makes, he was brilliant. Löw and Flick out-Scolari'd Scolari as well, which takes some doing .

Germany did what someone probably had to do eliminate Portugal - score at least two .

Germans are incredibly fickle. After a week of assuming certain defeat vs Austria and then Portugal, they are now all 100% sure that they will win the event .

Ha ha!! I don't think the German people are any different from other nationalities. Certainly not the English anyway!

I kept the faith they would win and was confident all the way through the match, especially with the manner they were playing. I reckon it will be Croatia in the 1/4's as I think they will be a bit too strong for the Turks. I hope so anyway!

Well, Germany vs Turkey would be a "special" match because the two countries have such close links so I am up for that .

I hope tonight is good. I haven't seen Croatia yet but it seems they are in good form.

I read a rumour that Podolski may be leaving Bayern. I'm not sure what to read into that, but announcing such a thing now would smack of bad timing if true. And the clubs mentioned who are interested include Koln, surely he would be a little too out of their range, even if they are trying to sign some top quality players on their return to the Bundesliga?

Surprising as it may seem, Poldi does not play much for Bayern and has been out of favour for a long time - they have Toni and Klose and Ribery to pick too. That may change under Klinsmann of course.

During a particularly bad run in autumn / spring, there were persistent rumours that Bayern would offload him to another German club. I can't remember which but it was not Köln. SGE was also apparently interested when he was at Man City.

For some reason Poldi is considered a problem player in that he is highly talented but his method / style is very hard to build a coherent team around and detracts from the overall team. Some respected critics (such as Honigstein in the Guardian) have even noted that his three goals here were at the expense of destabilising the rest of the team - effectively making him take the blame yet again.

I always have the impression (rightly or wrongly) that a lot of the Germans are home town boys. They like the local life in places like Bavaria and have little inclination to spread their wings.