Croatia vs Germany 
2 - 1
Austria vs Poland 
1 - 1
It's been split into the winners and the losers again, which can only mean one thing: the winner of the first game will definitely be in, and the loser of the second game will definitely be out. (I'm pretty sure.) Drama! Clearly, I'm going for Germany and Austria, here. Croatia may be my new crush, but Germany and I are the real deal. Also, I'm really looking forward to joining all the Austrians on the fan mile and learning/using some cool new cheers. Hopefully they put on a good show.
Update: Well, last night started out awful, stayed awful in the middle, and then ended quite jubilantly! The quarterfinal picture just got so complicated I can't even handle it, though. Croatia is definitely in, but none of the other three remaining teams are technically out, yet, though there are varying degrees of probability for each team getting in. But I'm going to put off thinking about that until the next batch of games comes around.
Boy howdy did Germany play like shit last night. I mean, if I, who barely knows anything about football, can tell that you're all piles of puke, you know it's bad. There's not really much more I can say than that. They couldn't complete a pass, they couldn't find the goal, and they couldn't defend anything either. It was pretty ugly.
Even Ballack's hair didn't bring its A-game.
[Getty Images]
It wasn't until the last ten minutes that they started showing signs of life, when German Derek Roy struck again to make it 2-1, but showing up for the last ten minutes isn't going to win you games, just ask the Sabres. At least it allowed the German fans, of which there were many on the fan mile, to get back into it. For a while the only sound was the chanting of the Croatia fans in front of us "Deutschland, Deutschland, auf Wiedersehen!" and "Deutschland, Deutschland, alles ist vorbei!" (Germany, goodbye and Germany, it's all over. A bit melodramatic and premature, but I have to give them points for chanting in German. Although then they began trying to start fights in the crowd, so I'd rather not give them any points.) The only other moment worth mentioning was when Schweinsteiger (whose name, I've been told, can also be translated as "pig mounter," which is beyond unfortunate) took a red card in the final moments of the game. Since it's impossible to see the nuances of penalties on the big screen in real time when the camera uses such a wide shot, the German fans, of course, started complaining about the call right away, having not seen what he did. It was really funny watching the replay of Schweinsteiger and some Croatian player falling down in the corner while the Germans behind me yelled "Was, denn?!" (What, then?), and then when Schweinie got up and basically tackled the Croat to the ground, there was a collective feeling of "Oh. Right. That." in the crowd. Anyway, I was especially disappointed by this loss, because it means that both Germany and Austria can't go on, like I wanted them to. If Germany had won this game, I would have been free to root for Austria to win on Monday, but now I'm going to have to choose. This sucks. Stupid Germany.
For the second game, the fan mile was more packed than ever, which obviously makes sense. The whole thing was a mess of red and white, which was a bit of a problem, since at first glance it was hard to tell the difference between an Austrian fan and a Polish fan. Especially when they're all chanting in unintelligible language. Anyway, it got easier to recognize the Austrians in the first ten minutes or so, since they were the ones groaning loudly and saying "Das gibt's ja nicht!" ("That can't be!") over and over again. The Austrian team came out of the gate flying. They went after the ball, forced turnovers and completely dominated play, keeping consistent pressure on the Polish defense and, on a number of occasions, forced their way through to a perfect scoring position. And yet, they couldn't score to save their lives. Seriously, it should have been 4-0 in the first ten minutes, but the Austrians just kept getting so close and then screwing it up at the last second, shooting wide of an empty net, or kicking it right to goalie on a two-on-one. As reflected by all the cries of disbelief from the Austrian crowd, it was impossible that they weren't scoring. It was like watching a team full of Thomas Vaneks. It must be an Austrian thing. Of course, since Austria was failing to capitalize on the mistakes of the Polish defense, that meant that they eventually made a mistake, and the Poles did capitalize on it. Poland scored on a shot that the Austrian goaltender just failed to get, and that pretty much deflated them and their attack retreated after that. Then the game got pretty boring. Nothing much happened at all until the last three minutes of stoppage time, when Austria drew a penalty in the box. By this time, my view of the screen was pretty impeded (which I hadn't even really noticed, since nothing worthwhile was happening), and I thought they had scored, based on the crowd's reaction. I still never saw the actual penalty (I'm told it was kind of a dive, but what isn't in soccer?), and I only barely saw the shot. I was just praying they weren't going to somehow screw up this golden opportunity, too, and luckily they didn't. The crowd exploded when they scored, and, a few minutes later, when the game officially ended, the Austrians took to the streets, yelling and chanting and singing. I'm pretty sure it's the most excited anyone's been about a tie since someone invented this:
Doesn't it make you want to celebrate?
Update: Well, last night started out awful, stayed awful in the middle, and then ended quite jubilantly! The quarterfinal picture just got so complicated I can't even handle it, though. Croatia is definitely in, but none of the other three remaining teams are technically out, yet, though there are varying degrees of probability for each team getting in. But I'm going to put off thinking about that until the next batch of games comes around.
Boy howdy did Germany play like shit last night. I mean, if I, who barely knows anything about football, can tell that you're all piles of puke, you know it's bad. There's not really much more I can say than that. They couldn't complete a pass, they couldn't find the goal, and they couldn't defend anything either. It was pretty ugly.
Even Ballack's hair didn't bring its A-game.[Getty Images]
It wasn't until the last ten minutes that they started showing signs of life, when German Derek Roy struck again to make it 2-1, but showing up for the last ten minutes isn't going to win you games, just ask the Sabres. At least it allowed the German fans, of which there were many on the fan mile, to get back into it. For a while the only sound was the chanting of the Croatia fans in front of us "Deutschland, Deutschland, auf Wiedersehen!" and "Deutschland, Deutschland, alles ist vorbei!" (Germany, goodbye and Germany, it's all over. A bit melodramatic and premature, but I have to give them points for chanting in German. Although then they began trying to start fights in the crowd, so I'd rather not give them any points.) The only other moment worth mentioning was when Schweinsteiger (whose name, I've been told, can also be translated as "pig mounter," which is beyond unfortunate) took a red card in the final moments of the game. Since it's impossible to see the nuances of penalties on the big screen in real time when the camera uses such a wide shot, the German fans, of course, started complaining about the call right away, having not seen what he did. It was really funny watching the replay of Schweinsteiger and some Croatian player falling down in the corner while the Germans behind me yelled "Was, denn?!" (What, then?), and then when Schweinie got up and basically tackled the Croat to the ground, there was a collective feeling of "Oh. Right. That." in the crowd. Anyway, I was especially disappointed by this loss, because it means that both Germany and Austria can't go on, like I wanted them to. If Germany had won this game, I would have been free to root for Austria to win on Monday, but now I'm going to have to choose. This sucks. Stupid Germany.
For the second game, the fan mile was more packed than ever, which obviously makes sense. The whole thing was a mess of red and white, which was a bit of a problem, since at first glance it was hard to tell the difference between an Austrian fan and a Polish fan. Especially when they're all chanting in unintelligible language. Anyway, it got easier to recognize the Austrians in the first ten minutes or so, since they were the ones groaning loudly and saying "Das gibt's ja nicht!" ("That can't be!") over and over again. The Austrian team came out of the gate flying. They went after the ball, forced turnovers and completely dominated play, keeping consistent pressure on the Polish defense and, on a number of occasions, forced their way through to a perfect scoring position. And yet, they couldn't score to save their lives. Seriously, it should have been 4-0 in the first ten minutes, but the Austrians just kept getting so close and then screwing it up at the last second, shooting wide of an empty net, or kicking it right to goalie on a two-on-one. As reflected by all the cries of disbelief from the Austrian crowd, it was impossible that they weren't scoring. It was like watching a team full of Thomas Vaneks. It must be an Austrian thing. Of course, since Austria was failing to capitalize on the mistakes of the Polish defense, that meant that they eventually made a mistake, and the Poles did capitalize on it. Poland scored on a shot that the Austrian goaltender just failed to get, and that pretty much deflated them and their attack retreated after that. Then the game got pretty boring. Nothing much happened at all until the last three minutes of stoppage time, when Austria drew a penalty in the box. By this time, my view of the screen was pretty impeded (which I hadn't even really noticed, since nothing worthwhile was happening), and I thought they had scored, based on the crowd's reaction. I still never saw the actual penalty (I'm told it was kind of a dive, but what isn't in soccer?), and I only barely saw the shot. I was just praying they weren't going to somehow screw up this golden opportunity, too, and luckily they didn't. The crowd exploded when they scored, and, a few minutes later, when the game officially ended, the Austrians took to the streets, yelling and chanting and singing. I'm pretty sure it's the most excited anyone's been about a tie since someone invented this:
Doesn't it make you want to celebrate?So, the next Group B games should be interesting.
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