Germany V Brazil Preview

The big final

Argentina against Germany. The most effective defense against the strongest offense.

Everything is pointing to a german win. They have a very strong collective, a very experiences squad and should win this game. Argentina surprisingly has features a very good defense in the tournament. Messi will be highly motivated and wants to prove a point.

Will the strong defense combined with a bit of magic from the best player ever suffice?

Or will Germany win?

I am very excited about this match. I think we are going to see something very special.

Whatever happens, this world cup has been marvelous!

Vamos Muchachos!!! 

Preview Brazil versus Germany

The first semi final = instant classic

An encounter that has only happened once before in all world cup history. It was the final of 2002 in Japan/South Korea.  The Oliver Kahn mistake and the goals by Ronaldo sealed the 5th championship for brazil back then. It featured the worse team that Germany has ever sent to a world cup and in my opinion also the worst team that brazil had ever sent to a world cup.

12 years later, the german side has improved dramatically. It probably features the greatest squad that the germans have ever had. All the players are in top form and are very experienced. Most of them have played at least one semi final in the world cup before (some even 2) and are ready and hungry to finally advance to a final.

The contrast to the Brazilian side couldn't be more krass. The defensive abilities of the Brazilians are quite good. With the likes of David Luiz, Maicon, Dani Alves, Marcelo, Dante and oscar, one can argue that the have the best defense of all the semi finalists.  The problem is, that is where the quality ends.  Fred as their offensive man is an embarrassment. He seems like a caricature of a strike from the 50s. No movement, low technical abilities and a diver through and through.

The second striker Hulk looks like he does not belong anywhere near a football field. He looks more like a body builder. He, along with Fred, has had a horrible tournament so far and it's puzzling why they are still being put in the starting formation by the coach. The Brazilian offensive line seems to be very weak indeed, specially since their only quality man Neymar cannot play due to a broken back.

Common sense would dictate that this would be an easy route for the Germans. Unfortunately, this world cup has proven that all games involving the host Brazil have their own special rules. The game against Chile was won with a lot of luck. And the game against Columbia with its 60 fouls was much more an exercise in mass martial arts than it was a football game. Mysteriously , the referee decided not to give any yellow cards. The Brazilians managed to compensate the quality difference with a huge amount of fouls.

Will they manage to win this game despite the quality difference?

We shall see tonight!

Argentina Versus Belgium

Argentina wins tight match to proceed to the semifinals

Argentina showed a better performance than in their previous games. And it was bitterly necessary against a strong Belgium side. The first goal was of course lucky.

But it took a Messi which was participating in the defense to disrupt the forward movement of Vincent Kompany to create the chance.
The ball was passed to di maria and a misdirected pass from him landed in front of Higuain. He just needed to shoot and score, which he did easily.

Higuain had a fabulous performance by the way. He was running all over the pitch and playing his best game since ages. He missed his second goal in the second half by hitting the crossbar.


The  priceless reaction of Argentinian coach Sabella was even nicer to behold than the chance it self.  Argentina delivered its strongest performance of the tournament and it was just in time.
I guess all the players knew that anything less than their maximum effort would not be enough to defeat the string belgian side. There finally was a cohesion between defense and offense. Argentina actually had a midfield in this game. Mascherano was the boss and was directing their entire defensive effort. Messi dropped deep to help out and actually had 6 tackles.

His last minute chance, he should have scored but squandered the opportunity with 2 minutes remaining on the extra time clock. It could have backfired bitterly, but Messi seems to have Fortuna in his side in this tournament.


Of course he did have the pass of the tournament which was an amazing 40 meter pass which cut through the whole belgian defense.








The man of the match award was handed to Higuain for a brilliant showing.

This is the first time Argentina has managed to reach the semi finals since 1990, which happened to be the last tournament in which Maradona was able to play without getting suspended.

Argentina will face off Holland in an already instant classic semi final.


Looking forward to it!

It should be a hell of a ride!

Argentina V Switzerland

Messi makes the difference

The game was full of suspense. The swiss made things extremely difficult for the argentinians. Argentina had all the ball possession and the swiss had the dangerous attacks and the goal chances in the first half.

Argentina dominated the second half but was denied repeatedly by a very strong swiss keeper.

This time, Messi was really active. He participated in almost every attack and even helped out in the defense.

Unfortunately, the only other argentinian player that had any quality was Di Maria.

This picture is symbolic for the whole game.

He was alone against the swiss.

And it was Messi's brilliant run and the pass to di maria in the 118th minute that ended the swiss hope of reaching the quarter finals. 

Argentina was of course incredibly lucky that one minute later the swiss did not score:

Argentina will have a difficult time against Belgium in saturday. If something does not change drastically, they will lose and they will lose badly.


Messi was awarded the man of the match award for a fourth time. His Whoscored.com rating was 9.4

Argentina versus Nigeria

A nice game with a lot of Goals,

The quality of both teams was of course very poor. Messi already scored after 3 minutes after Di maria hit the post.

Nigeria immediately hit back with a very nice strike by Ahmad Mussa.

After that the whole excitement was snuffed out of the game. Argentina was abysmal. It is incredible to see how a great team during the qualification could play so badly during the tournament. They only thing that is keeping them alive is Lionel Messi.

A brilliant free kick again brought the lead just before the whistle.

Nigeria again quickly equalized. The argentinian defense looked very bad and Mssa scored his second goal.

One corner and an accidental goal brought the victory for Argentina. Messi was replaced in the 65th minute to make sure their only hope would not suffer any injuries.
Argentina will probably play Switzerland in the next round. Its really hard to imagine this team to reach the Finals.
One brilliant Messi should not be enough to do that.

Messi was awarded the man Of the amatch award for the third time. The only player who has managed to that in this World Cup. He is also leading the Goal scorer board together with his Barcelona mate Neymar.

Whoscored.com gave him a very big rating of above 9

Messi for club and country in 2013-14: - 53 appearances - 48 goals - 15 assists

Croatia V Cameroon

A very one sided game, 

Cameroon had no chance in hell of doing anything here. In the very hot and humid stadium, the Croatians found a perfect combination of passing, running and slowing down the game to conserve their energy. The result was the inevitable 4-0.

Cameroon on the other hand was an absolute disgrace. Song was sent off on a red card after an assault on Mandzukic. The players were not a team. At one point there was a head butt between ASSOU-EKOTTO and Moukandjo.

Argentina v Bosnia Live Blog

90: Game over. Argentina wins 2-1. Man of the match Messi. Very hard match. Bosnia is definitely a very strong side.

84: goal Bosnia, Ibisevic scores. The only real attack by Bosnia in the whole second half and they score

81: good counter attack, Messi to Aguero, attempts to pass back to Messi but was cleared for corner.. The counter attacks are now dangerous

65: what a fantastic goal by Messi. Coming from the left. Dribbled 2 players and shot to the inside of left post on the ball went in. Spectacular goal and Messi celebrates franticly. I guess he is very relieved!

62: freekick for Argentina. Promising position. shot wide from the goal.

55: finally some good passes by messi. he seems to be getting better.

Second half starts Higuain joins for Rodriguez. The strange 5-3-2 system is changed back to 4-3-3.

40: almost goal for bosnia after a corner. Great save by Romero

31: shot mascherano, easy to deflect by the keeper. Both teams are able to keep the balance.

23:  Bosnia has no problems defending until now. Game is very even.
20: great pass to messi, but he wasnt able to make anything out of it. Looks very nervous.

16: several balls have been lost by Lionel Messi. He is not in the game yet.

13: dangerous chance for Bosnia. Bosnian Striker couldnt control a ver nice deep cross. epper Romero didnt look well at all in that situation!

12: the game is a big fight. Both teams havent found their rhythm. Very nervous tension!

2: well that was fast.freekick high cross by messi. Own goal by Bosnian player. Argentina leads.

0:  kick off!!

all right, This is the game I have been waiting for.
Lets see what the best player of all times will do.
Di Maria and Aguero have also had a great season Specially Di Maria was spectacular the last months. Sabella, the coach Argentina, seems to be a very able coach. The only problem is the defense. Bosnia is a very strong team which is used to play very offensively. This promises to be a big firework. Both teams will go for the kill from the start.

Her is the start formation: