*james* said:
when it comes to betting I don't care if I like or hate the team, I would bet on Italy if I didn't think they sucked
before the tournament I was planning to bet a lot on italy games but then I saw them play and changed my mind
What is so special about the way that Germany or Portugal has been playing?
*james* said:
I'm glad you are impressed with wins over Costa Rica, Ecuador, Poland and Sweden but not wins over Ghana, Ukraine and Czech Republic. Are they playing great, probably not, but "poor" is a gross exaggeration. They handled Ghana and the Czechs (both of which are better than anyone Germany actually beat) fairly easily. To say a team "struggles" when winning down a man is a bit disingenuous. They had better and more scoring opportunities (even with 10 men) than Australia did (who really had none) and won while down for half the game. That in and of itself should be somewhat impressive. Granted, the US game wasn't impressive, but no one has been impressive throughout the tournament.
Further, even if you aren't impressed with the manner of the wins or their opponents, they haven't actually given up a goal yet and haven't allowed many good scoring opportunities. Zaccardo's own goal was absolutely horrible, but even that wasn't under pressure from the opponent.
The Germans are lucky to be here. They had the easiest draw of anyone (EVERY team in the Italy group was better than CR, Poland and Ecuador) and Pekerman's coaching job was the absolute worst I have ever seen. Argentina was in absolute control until he gave the game away by stopping the attack and removing Riquelme for Cambiasso. Not to mention never getting Messi or Saviola in the game. Just horrible on his part. Sweden was nothing, another team lucky to advance due to a piss poor group. They drew T&T, struggled to beat Paraguay and drew the England B team.
Italy may not win, but they absolutely should. The only thing that has changed with Germany since 6/1 is confidence. I'm not sure that and the home crowd are enough to beat a superior team.
jam said:
There is less outcry over the penalty call than you think. I was in Europe at the time and BBC, Sky and CNN commentators all agreed it was a penalty. I also saw the ESPN crew (both Wynalda and Foudy I believe) agree with the call. Somewhat soft penalty, but a penalty nonetheless. When the ball and player are past a guy and he stumbles over the defender you get that call every time. I have also seen 2 different angles and from the angle the ref had it looks like a penalty.
As someone else said, they have no one to blame but themselves. They were up a man for 40 minutes and had 3 separate chances to stop Grosso or the ball and failed each time.
when i look through the squads i don't know how you could say italy is better on paper. The german offense with Podolski and Klose is far better than Luca Toni and with Nesta out i don't even see an advantage at defense for italy. Luca Toni will have a hard evening as german central defenders are 1,96 and 1,93 tall. And when i look at goalies Buffon is not better than Lehmann, also pretty even.
cheers,
colton
cheers,
colton
:toast:
arty::toast:colton said:
I guess the question is, what has changed from before the world cup that now makes everyone think Germany is actually good? They beat 3 horrible teams in qualifying, one average team and drew a team who grossly outplayed them that virtually gave the game away with awful tactical and personnel decisions.
Klose feasts on shitty teams. Llook at his WC scoring record, 9 of his 10 goals came against the likes of Poland, CR, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, Ireland and Cameroon. Their defense, although tall, is very average.
I know it is hindsight as 20/20 vision, but if you were to look at the results and Germany's opponents the logical bet was Italy. Argentina outplayed them and really should have won. Taking Riquelme out and never using Messi and Saviola were awful mistakes. Combine that with the fact they stopped going forward after scoring and you get the draw. Germany still hasn't beaten a good team since 2000.
