Hardly seen any of the footie to date, just caught the second half of the Spain-Italy quarter final, and now the last 30 mins of Turkey vs Germany (replay).
ESPN, for some strange reason, feels obliged to tell us, to three significant figures, how many kilometers they estimate various players have run at different times of the game.
Which is an absolutely bizarely irrelevant statistic, unless maybe I were a german assistant coach looking for a rationale to get rid of a beloved but aging midfielder.
Which I guess is why Germany strangely reminds me of the English teams of the 80s or 90s - flat across the back, long balls to the front and poor finishing.
Turkey reminds me of the old Italian teams, which I supposed is a good thing. Maybe a tad less diving.
A Turkey vs Russia final would be interesting. If Russia plays like the team that beat the great imploding Dutch, and if Spain keeps playing like they did vs Italy - who may I say deserved to lose on penalties, having played as they did.
But, Klose just made it 2-1, so maybe not.
Germany vs Russia would also be interesting in a different way, but I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to see Germany vs Spain.
Hm, Germany is also lucky - very much like the English teams of old.
Yup, German defence is now just booting it any old way, and Turkey has that touch of desperate frenzy Italy got if they fell behind in the old days.
Almost worth it to see Chancellor Merkel smile...
Ooh, Turkey equalize with 5 mins left. They definitely have the old Italy touch.
Guess I'll be up late tonight.
Wow, nice 1-2 from Lahm, I guess that about does it for the lads...
Deutsche defence just has to be able to hoof it half a dozen time more.
Clever move doing a substitution of Klose in extra time - English coach would never have thought of that...
Must be last freekick now. And Turkey scores 3 points on the conversion but Germany win because this is football, not football.
Now we'll see if Russia is on form or if the Spanish goalie will take them to the final.
Not a bad last half hour.
Already an ESPN Classic, and worth it to see that smile on Chancellor Merkel. Got to admire a head of state who actually enjoys a good game, for real.
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Not a bad last half hour.
It was a bad last few minutes if you were rooting for the right team.
Ouch.
Commiserations.
I had no partisan preconceptions - it was just an exciting and quite well played game...
Well, as you probably know by now, Luis Aragones made a couple of substitutions at the 68th minute and Espana promptly blew Russia right out of the match.
Sunday's game could be interesting, both teams like to score.
And, yea, I hate the ESPN obsession with statistics. This is not baseball. I really don't want the international record between Spain and Russia is going back over the last 40 years to cover two guys fighting for the ball.
yeah, I actually saw the second half.
Spain was back on the form they had during qualifiers (as I infer from the grauniad liveblogs), although Torres was disappointing.
Russia seemed to give up in the second half, did they have some sort of magic revival against the Dutch, or the the Dutch just collapse after group play?
Anyway, I'll probably commandeer the TV sunday afternoon for the final.
Spain should win, on form, but the Germans are very hard to catch out once they get to this level. If Spain gets frustrated and the Germans maintain their discipline in the back they can win.
He says.
Be an interesting match up, Fabregas and Torres(?) trying to wiggle past the German central backs, while the German flankers try to get behind the Spanish outside defenders and feed the strikers in the area.
Not sure it will have the emotional intensity needed for a truly classic final though.