World Cup 2010

I think I want to stick with BlackFinn.  As it's a weekday, I think the crowds will be manageable compared to the US weekend games.

What a tease Joachim Löw.

Why do you bring the old Germany back now?  These kids were fun to watch…

Fantastic performance by spain.  Mueller's absence was felt.

Wtf happened with germany's offense? they got NOTHING going all game long. Spain has has owned the ball until now… I didn't expect it to continue today. my bad.

sweetcell wrote:
surgical.

The patient died on the table.

Brian

Ze Germans clearly came out with defense in mind and hoped to score on the counter.  That's not at all how they played this entire tournament.  There will be questions to answer after this…but they still have to be very happy with how far they got and look like Euro 2012 favorites right now.

Actually when I predicted Uruguay vs Germany 1-0, it was for the 3rd place match…  ;D
now, for the title… Spain over Holland 2-1

Was the only one here who bet for Spain, you guys allowed a 4-1 and a 4-0 to impress you way too much. those scores were misleading. Argentina does not exist with Maradona as a coach, and England is awful as a national team, not when the players are playing for their clubs.

Barcelona is one step away of winning the World Cup! the philosphy of Johan Cruyff (Guardiola, Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi obviously)

Happy for Spain, this is huge for the country.

Barcelona wrote:
you guys allowed a 4-1 and a 4-0 to impress you way too much. those scores were misleading.

I thought the opposite.  I was more underwhelmed by Spain's 0-1 loss to Switzerland, 2-0 defeat of Honduras, 2-1 defeat of Chile then back to back one goal game's against Portugal and Paraguay then I was impressed by Germany's victories.

Either way, congratulations on "Barcelona's" victory, and nice shout out to Johan Cruyff, whose head must be about to explode with this final.

How was germany's strategy today any different than it was against england and argentina? germany has been emphasizing capitalizing on counterattacks all tournament (see e.g. goal 3 vs england, which was brilliant).  germany played with the same set-up as those games and did have plenty of opportunities (but no mueller to finish or make perfect passes). spain played their game and made plays.  i don't blame german coaching at all.

Mobius wrote:
How was germany's strategy today any different than it was against england and argentina?

I thought maybe I was being too harsh on Low after seeing the adoration of the Spanish gameplan, so I watched it again last night.  Sitting back against that midfield is basically announcing that we're allowing you to hold the ball for 90 minutes if you wish, because Spain can do that.  And they did.

But to your point though, even on the counter, which was Germany's strength after the group stage, you rarely saw Lahm going forward, and Boateng, who was taken out oddly at the 52nd minute, was a disaster going forward, basically running right into Ramos everytime.  Watching the counters, it was pretty much up to Ozil and Klose because even Schweinstager and Khedira were sitting back.  2, and on the rare occassion 3 going forward, but you rarely saw the 4 and 5 man attacks that led to the goals against England and Argentina.

Sure, Spain were fantastic (if not down right boring to most) with their tiki-taka style of game, but let's not forget: the lone goal was scored on an set-piece, not some dazzling display of touch pass football.  God I hope the Dutch don't sit back and let this happen to them.

It will be interesting, for sure.  If netherlands aka holland aka the dutch open up spain will create beautiful opportunities.  Can they finish?  Iniesta and xavi are finally on point, but they're more facilitators.  Pedro is a huge upgrade for torres, but also a facilitator.  Xabi camr real clos to being a hero yesterday and is a good suspect to join villa on score sheet.  Holland aka netherlands aka dutch are super solid and I'm not betting against sneijder anytime soon, but I think spain will make them also appear strangely impotent.

sweetcell wrote:
in case you needed another reason to cheer for holland

10,000,000 guys just signed up for her twitter  ;D

Klinsmann said it after the Germany-Spain game: Germany just respected Spain too much..They didn't take it to Spain…

Honestly, Germany just seemed so much more pumped up for the England and Argentina games… Klinsmann said that he thought the defeat against Spain in 2008 still weighed against them..

Pulpo Paul was right again…

Totaalvoetbal def. Tika Taka. 2-2 (4-3 PK) (What I thought Deutschland would defeat Espana by.)

And somewhere, a proud Johan Cruyff buys Tom Brady and Jim Kelly a beer.

Brian

Total Football?  That's like calling Pat Riley's Knicks 'Showtime'.*  Glad Iniesta finally pulled the trigger and the better team won before penalty kicks.


*And if Spain could have had a possession without getting fouled perhaps they could have demonstrated to the Dutch what Total Football looks like

Fuck off.

You're boring, you dive, you scored the lowest goal total to win a cup by a long shot (8 goals! despite 32 teams) and half your own country hates you.  I'll remind you why….



Congrats.  See you in Kiev.

Pretty unfair.  Spain plays an elegant style which embodies the Dutch tradition passed onto Barcelona and now, finally, the national team whose DNA was rooted in Barca (who are rooted in Total Football).

The team started to click in the knockout rounds but ran into bad style matchups other than the German game, which was awesome.  The Netherlands chose to play a negative game and foul essentially every play.  Spain could never find a rhythm b/c of the ugly play of their opponent.  The 'dives' were responses to intended fouls . . .a negative response to a negative intention (the few times Netherlands didn't actually foul) to keep the ref on notice.  Paraguay played a negative game.  Spain's best performance was against Germany, a high powered team rendered helpless (but which still could easily have won and probably would have with Mueller) for the most part.

Spain came into the tournament with 3 goalscorers - Villa, Torres and David Silva.  Torres and Silva were worse than useless.  Villa was great.  Despite being handicapped, Spain managed to score each game and lock down their opponents.  Casillas was brilliant. 

In the past two years if Barca only had Villa instead of Messi in combination with Etoo then Ibrihimovic as well as Henry would they be boring?  No.  Would they score less.  Of course.

The nations of Franco and Hitler play beautiful soccer/football today . . .a testament to progress (and the reemergence of national characters which had been hijacked to emphasize their worst possible sides).  Interestingly it was the Netherlands team that played a game reminiscent of Fascism.