pede54 said:
Surprising game for me. Both teams pretty cagey,but considering what was at stake, understandable. I was surprised by Pekermans lack of bravery concerning his subs though. I thought he was Sven Goran for a moment there. Both teams pretty equal and gave as good as they got. I thought it was a pretty clean game too. The only dives I saw (2) both got carded so thats fair. I thought the ref did a good job.
Penalties is a crap way to win or lose a game. I hate the shootout, its just a lottery to a certain extent. I feel sorry for Argentina. After all the work they have put into this campaign and the enjoyment they have given us, its a shame they go out on penalties. I've enjoyed watching them, they have some very watchable players. Hard luck fellas, we know what it feels like to exit on penalties. You still have a team to be proud of.
Congrats Germany, ( my second fav National team), Very strong and persistant resistance and Ballack playing through his injury for so long was admirable.
Yeah, I thought it was pretty clean too and few dives. What I really think happened was the ref got very mad at Argentina when they were constantly wasting time from 60-75 mins and lost any sympathy he had for them. So he started carding their dives or just not blowing the whistle, even if perhaps he missed a few calls. Gotta hand it to Ballack, he worked the ref into that attitude.
The Maxi dive was just ridiculous. You could see him just pick his legs up and start to go down before Lahm even got to him.
Ballack does have a reputation for going down easily, but I don't know what you guys are talking about. On one corner, and then on the set piece cross into the box, Ballack was being held and dragged down by whoever could get a hand on him. The corner was absolutely terrible because Ballack likely would have gotten to the ball and had a good header on goal if he wasn't held and thrown to the ground; clear penalty in my opinion.
Ballack was clearly a non-factor after his "dive". He must have really been committed to fooling the ref because he was hobbling the rest of the game not doing anything.
Borowski had a nice assist, but in my opinion he played like garbage. He had a ton of passes that were off target and he definitely wasn't running the midfield, that was Frings.
Great goal by the modern day Gerd Mueller, Miroslav Klose. His legend is just going to keep on growing if he continues to score these big goals. I was surprised that he got taken off, but perhaps he was tired. Plus, in a tie game Neuville is a must.
Podolski's "heil" was not with the left, it was with the right Vince. However, as I already said, it was clearly not his intent to make a Nazi gesture to the entire world. I'm just saying, it can be misinterpreted. I don't think he's a Jew, he doesn't look like any Jews I know.
Not sure why people insist on being assholes to fans of teams that lose. We get it, not everyone likes every team, but the "lmao stupid argies, diving cheaters deserve to lose lolz!!!11" is retarded and makes you look like a complete idiot. Your sportsmanship is just about as bad as it can get.