B2: Croatia 2 - 1 Germany - 12/06/08

[apetimberlake]

Originally Posted by Trim

FFS! Lehmann you son of a bitch. Retire you old fuck!

Gomez off, thanks God. Schweini on.

Auf gehts Deutschland scheiss ein tor!!

As a keeper i can tell you that a shot that is deflected like that and skids againstthe ground is tricky.

I wouldnt fully blame that goal on him

[sinoy1]

Wow...Im not predicting anything anymore.Instead of a 2-1 result for Germany it was 2-1 for Croatia.Insane game.

Croatia are playing exceptionally well and organized.Really impressed!The quality of the games lately have been top class.Thank god I didnt miss this one.

[jec1]

Germany came into this as the powerhouse favorites, and some might say, they acted a little cocky but sometimes when you meet a team like Croatia, a tactical strategy is vital, German's defense looked weak, that might be their only flaw.

Lehmann was at fault but everything rest upon the defense. Not to mention, croatia kept attacking, they showed 'No fear' and you can see the frustration on some of the German players.

A well-deserved win for Croatia, you have a beautiful country and you played beautifully.

[Poldi]

Shame, shame, shame, I cant believe what happened there, I was 100% shore that we will win!

Jansen damned fucken up all!!!! Only one good thing is that Poldi scored again.

[BlackNess]

I have nothing to say, Totally crap

We are gonna get through this but it will be unforgettable.

Jansen, Gomez and Odonkor Must not see Grass again in this tournament FFS.

Lehmann Is crap, he is Shit, I wouldn't take him to a match is school.

Enke must start next match.

Schweini was Fantastic, But why ??? why did you do this ??

Lahm, Metesacker and Poldi ... .

I don't know what I am gonna do now, God Fuckkkkk Lehmann ... Amen!

[Trim]

Löw better change things for the next match.

Jansen and Gomez must not start.
Metzelder was shite aswell, but who can replace him? We don't have any good option in bench.

Lehmann.. fuckin` crap. But Löw will start him again. No point in discussing this.

Marin should have come to the Euros! He'd have been useful today.

Today: no creativity + disastrous defence = ERROR!

[Dragoen]

Lucky me that I also support Craoatia so I am not that pissed now. ^^


Croatia played really good and I knew that this would be a really hard match.

Jansen was just crap and nothing else. Metzelder was okay but I still would like to see Merte and Westermann playing CB.

For the next match i would change the defense to this
Friedrich----Mertesacker-----Westermann------Lahm

Lehmann was not that bad today. he was a bit unlucky at the second goal but Podolski was touching the ball a bit so that lehmann got the ball wrong.
Don't know if it is a that good idea replacing the keeper before a game that is so important.

Gomez not that good so far. Podolski plus either Gomez or Klose would work better up front but who to punt on the left wing now that Schweinsteiger is barred?

[azzurri]

As the game went on, Germany became more predictable. They gave the ball away to much, and the entire team's 1st touch was off, made even worse by Croatia constantly closing down space in midfield.

Croatia were more effecient with their possession, and were unlucky to not score a 3rd (Kranjcar skied it).

Croatia are starting to live upto the hype they entered the tournament with. They were the better team throughout the match and deserved their win. Germany will rebound though. It's better they get this out of their system now than in the knock outs.

[lionel]

I missed the first half, so I am just commenting about the second.

bringing Odonkor in was a very bad gamble by louw, I know what he was thinking, but odonkor was so unsuitable for the way germany was playing. shweini or hitzelssomething would have been much better for this game...

Lahm and mertesacker were fantastic realy. podolski's finish was class.

but..... Croatia showed today that they are aiming very high!! inspired by the brilliant Luca(?) Modric...... my god what a player - I don't think he had one touch that isn't perfect.

I think Bilic deserves a lot of credit here because croatia looked very organized and very well prepared for the match. (even though the second goal was very lucky)

[Trim]

Löw Blasts Below-Par Performance

German national team trainer Joachim Löw was forced to admit that his side were second best to Croatia after seeing the beaten 2-1 by Slavan Bilic’s side.

The German's air of invincibility was dashed with goals from Dario Srna and Ivica Olic handing Croatia a 2-1 win. Lukas Podolski grabbed one back for the Germans, only for Bastian Schweinsteiger to be sent off at the end of the game.

Löw admitted that his side had underperformed and found it difficult to take any positives from the game.

“It is difficult to voice criticism so soon after a game” he said. “But all the players played below what they are capable of. In the first ten or fifteen minutes we had no tempo and were not competitive.

“After going behind we were not in a position to keep up the pace, we lacked precision, and wasted possession” he added.

“We were not able to play our game. We were a long way off the level of performance we showed against Poland. In the second half we played without pressure and didn’t use the wings.

“Between midfield and attack, there was no compactness, which made things difficult for the defence.

“Schweinsteiger did not hit the opponent, but he did push him to the ground. Before the game we told the players not to allow themselves to be provoked.”

Goal.com - Germany - Löw Blasts Below-Par Performance

[RunX]

Fucking match .. horrible match for germany !
lehmann wtf !
Metzelder WTF !
Jansen wt the fuck
Gomez and klose .. not on form !!
balack .... not on form !

[Buddha14]

Originally Posted by azzurri

Croatia were more effecient with their possession, and were unlucky to not score a 3rd (Kranjcar skied it).

Yeah he's good at doing that

The second goal shouldnt really be blamed on Lehmann a ball hit that hard deflected skidding along the ground is tough to get to plus he had to change the direction he was going. But the fact that the german defence watched Olic poke it in, well the blame should go on him

[Trim]

Maybe it's better that it happened today, than later in the KO stage.

Still time to iron out defensive errors.

[Vargas_4]

Originally Posted by Vargas_4

... we still need to improve.

Jansen needs to start playing better. He's our most defensive player in that position and was the most vulnurable during the whole game.

We really need to work on our crosses. We wasted many corners and set pieces because of that.

I knew we shouldn't have put Jansen on the field.

The decenet players tonight: Lahm, Podolski & Frings

Schweinsteiger would have been on the list, considering that when he came on, we started attacking more and were able to pull one back. But he ain't included since he made that stupid desicion of pushing the other guy.

Metz & Merte... What the fuck? I said before that they needed to communicate better. What's up with them both on 1 guy? On the 1st goal, they were both covering the No.19 player. Leaving sucky Jansen to cover the No.11 ... Where he did SUCH A GREAT JOB...

Lehmann = shit ... do i need to add anything more? Yeah. He stopped a good shot. (which again, Metz & Merte were on top of the same guy as he pass-headed to the dude who fired the shot). But it was straight at him. Nothing special there. Felt he could have done something for the 2nd goal.

Jansen... Where do i start? This was his most horrible performance ever. I mean. Damn. As i said, he's suppossed to be our most defensive LB and i could have done a better job as LB. Should be benched for the rest of the Euro. Also robbed Podolski a good shooting chance. Stupid of him.

Frings did well. He seemed to be the only one trying to push the team forward. Something that a captain does. Ballack didn't do shit. Ok. One good free kick. Nothing more. His passes were shit. Didn't inspire anyone.

Lahm. Great game. Really good on both sides. No complaints there.

Fritz. He didn't have such a good game as he did vs Poland. But he still didn't do well. It seemed if we had no right side of the field. He couldn't get anything going.

Klose and Gomez aren't doing anything. I feel Gomez should be benched. Had enough of him. I'd rather have him come in as a sub later on in the game.

Podolski did really good. Tried many attacks on the left. Got into the game. Grabbed a goal.

The subs were dull.

Bad call getting Odonkor out there. Nothing changed. We still seemed not to have a player on the right. Nothing gained. The only "positive" thing was that he got Jansen off the field.

Felt the defence was better with Lahm on the left and droppin Fritz as RB.

Kuranyi? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? I mean... he's shit! I'm starting to miss Marco Marin not being called up for the Euro... and this garbage gets a call? Really stupid. He didn't add anything to our game. Didn't get involved.

Low did badly there.

Schweinsteiger was a good entry but a little too late. Gomez out. That was a good thing. As i said, he would have gotten into my "decent" list but he fucked up in the end.

But...

Credit to Croatia for being able to exploit our weak points (Jansen and the Merte-Metz bad partnership & lack of communication).

They were able to control our right side of the field and didn't let Ballack do anything (though he didn't do anything at all, really. Just show up).

They deserved a win.

Now...

We're most likely to get 2nd place now. Unless Poland defeats Croatia next round and we beat Austria by +2... Only then we can get the 1st spot. If not...

We're facing Portugal. A side i feel it's too early to cross swords with. But oh well. Practically the whole team fucked up and didn't give the will nor the effort into doing anything.

[Trim]

Well said Vargas!