Yeah!! Germany won a deserving 4-1 over England. The last world cup, the Germany had an ageing team, with most of the players age averaging around ~29-30 years old, under Michael Ballack. Their defense was very solid, positional play (typical of Germany) , but however their goals are not spectacular and depended heavily on headers to score, if i am not mistaken.
But, this time around most of the German players are extremely young. This really brings in new blood and abundance of energy into their play. When I saw how they completely outplay the Australian at the 4-0 win at very spectacular flair, something I never seen before by a German team, I had a gut feeling that this team going to performed some spectacular footballing. This is considering the fact that i think that European football is dead. German is truly the exception that i am happy to make.
The match was very exciting, with multiple attempts by Germany at the starting first half to score. As expected, England is lack-lustre. The first goal scored by Miroslav Klose ( a 32 year old world cup veteran) at the 20th min shows that he can still outrun and outpaced 2 English defenders and beat the keeper.
The 2nd goal by Germany at 32th min to seal the lead shows great teamwork between Muller and Podolski which delivered a precise finishing to beat the keeper between the legs. England scored a goal through a header at the 37 mins although it looked like as though that Matt Upson just jumped into the air and the ball deflected in the goal by hitting his face.
The controversial portion in the game is Lampard's goal scoring kick struck the crossbar and bounced back but ruled out by the referee and linemen as not touching the goal line. But with the amazing technology of slow motion replays, the ball clearly passed the line. Tough luck for England!!
The 3rd and 4th goal by 21 year old Thomas Mueller was a carbon copy of each other and as a result of lightning runs by youthful German players which again outpaced, outrun English defenders. Muller coolly collected the 1-2 assisted pass and scored 2 point blank shots to the goal. Pity the helpless English goalkeeper, unable to do anything but cursing his own team performance. From the first goal that he failed to save,I can see that he kept on shouting the F*** word to his team mates when the camera zoomed over him..
I think the only English player that is doing some REAL work was Frank Lampard whom at a few times threatened to score through his free-kicks and long range shots. Wayne Rooney was missing in action throughout the match and never even scored a single goal in this 2010 world cup. Really over-rated as in the 2006 World Cup.
In short: GERMANY is one step of becoming the World Champion, while ENGLAND deservingly to be designated as an over-rated football nation at the international level with the worst historical defeat so far at the hands of the Germans.
Nice game to watch so far!! I will try to post the goal highlights once it is available in YouTube :)
