Rewind and replay this match again and --even with the same level of Brazilian defending – it’s easily a 3-2 game.
Look at the stats above: Brazil had more shots and more shots on goal than Germany. And IMHO opinion, their offense was as good as Germany’s. But half! of Germany’s shots went in, and only one of Brazil’s.
Consider Germany’s goals:
One went in off the crossbar.
One went through the legs of a defender who was sliding to block the shot
Two were within a foot of the goalkeeper (don’t tell me this was perfect placement by Germany, either: the first goal went back across the center of the goal to the far side of the keeper. Nobody would do that on purpose from that location)
One was a rebound right to the foot of a German.
One was a moderate distance shot that sneaked in the far post.
And in the meantime, how many of Brazil’s shots hit the keeper from a range where he couldn’t react?
I see what you’re saying, but things like Klose’s rebound shot or both of Kroos’s goals wouldn’t have happened had the Brazilians had a functioning defense clearing the ball out and closing down on players and not giving up possession in the back. The Germans didn’t need more shots on goal (which they clearly could have had more of) because they were one on three with the keeper every time.
Oh BS! Brazil basically had one decent chance the whole game and Germany basically walked the ball into the net four times. There’s no universe where this game isn’t a complete curb stomping.
Most of those Brazilian shots were in the 2nd half when Germany were 5 goals up. The Germans were not playing all out in the 2nd half. Indeed they stopped playing all out after 30 minutes. THe Stats from the 2nd half are worthless imo.
I was trying to explain what had just happened to my wife (who is not interested in any sport and didn’t watch the match), and that was basically all I could come up with: I kept waiting for ESPN to switch back to a studio feed and say, “well, that was the semifinal according to EA’s FIFA '14. Now we’ll take you to Belo Horizonte for Brazil against Germany.”
But it never happened. I’ve been watching World Cups since 1986 and I never even imagined a competitive team could put in a performance like that. I was stunned enough when it was 3-0. I was barely coherent when it was 7. In the semifinals!
This. Germany could have scored 20 if they wanted to. Remember, Klose came off around half time. Speaking of which, I am very surprised we haven’t seen Podolski at all in this Cup. Has he fallen off the map that badly?
Disagree. Croatia’s win over Germany in '98 was the most shocking result of the tournament - maybe of any tournament in recent history. At the time, it seemed like an even bigger deal than France squashing Brazil.
Gilberto Silva was saying much the same thing on ESPN’s post-match analysis. I don’t get it. Oh, boo hoo; you only won one out of the last four World Cups. Granted, this team didn’t deserve to be in a semifinal but it would not have been a shock if they had won the tournament.
Not sure I agree with this. Fred was utterly ineffective. Neymar would at least have been able to hold the ball up a bit at the front. I don’t think he would have changed the result, but the scoreline would have been different.
The real loss was obviously Tiago Silva. With him, Brazil have looked iffy at times; without him, they looked like San Marino. It wasn’t just the organization; they looked fucking lazy. They were caught in possession a number of times simply because the German players wanted the ball and the Brazilian players didn’t seem to care. Even at 100% Sammy Khedira is not known for his speed, but he made almost every Brazilian player look like they were wearing lead shoes.
I can only assume it was Silva’s leadership that kept this team in something approaching fighting shape until now.
I think I was even able to explain it to my wife. I was doing commentary for her so she’d see just how awful Brazil’s defence was and it sounded very much like this. The sixth (?) goal was just embarrassing; Lamm takes a pass just outside the six yard box and has enough time to grow and harvest a crop of tomatoes before casually passing horizontally to Schurrer. Germany would have scored that goal even if Schurrer hadn’t been there because Thomas Muller was the only other person that even went for the ball.
I don’t see it either. The only way the Germans don’t win this World Cup is if they don’t show up for the final (which is certainly possible after a historic semifinal drubbing like this.) For all that Brazil helped make the Germans look like a World XI, they are genuinely good going forwards.
Argentina have looked old and slow at the back and I haven’t seen any non-Messi look like he has an idea for a goal. I don’t know that they’ll beat Holland, much less Germany. The Dutch have been highly Robben-dependent (he’s my player of the tournament, I think) but they also have Snijder. Plus Van Persie will presumably show up again at some point.
Except that in the first 15 minutes Brazil had several good opportunities, more than Germany did.
Look, I’m not saying Germany wasn’t the better team. But this was not a demonstration that Brazil was the worst team at the tournament and among the worst teams ever to play in a World Cup. It was rather a perfect storm of a few Brazilian defensive mistakes, a fair amount of offensive luck on Germany’s part to convert every single mistake into a goal, and zero bounces going Brazil’s way when they were on offense.
Both Brazil and Germany had about the same number of shots that were on goal, from close enough that the keeper couldn’t react much, and within a foot of the keeper. 3 of 4 German shots just missed the keeper and went in, while every one of Brazil’s hit the keeper. That doesn’t demonstrate that the Brazilian team is absolutlely horrible while the Germans are nigh-perfect; it demonstrates that the Germans had more luck in that situation.
Again, Germans were better (to be clear, the Brazilian defense was worse than the German’s while offenses were not too far apart), but, if shot luck was even yesterday, it would have been maybe 4-2 Germany.
[And I’m not saying this as a Brazil fan. After the refereeing travesties favoring them earlier in the tournament, I was drinking Brazilian fans’ tears like sweet sweet wine. ]
I was confident the Germans would get sweet vengeance on the Brazilians for what they did to my poor Cafeteros… but this was like the mob boss sending out a goon to smash a knee, and getting the Valentine’s Day Massacre instead.
What an excruciating game to watch! I snuck out of work early, found a nice Irish pub in midtown with a great TV and sound. My girlfriend, who is Brazilian, came into the city to watch the game with me. We’ve watched every game together so thought it would be good luck. I was a Brazil fan even before she was born, plus I had placed a large “investment” on Brazil before the World cup started. We were so ready to cheer and celebrate Brazil’s chance on Sunday to win #6.
…And then I saw the starting lineup. I said to the German fellow next me, “We’ll be lucky if it’s not 3-0 Germany by half time”. This is before my girlfriend showed up. He smiled and thought I was being humble, nice, etc. But I jumped on my cellphone and placed a rather large hedge that would allow me substantially reduce my loss if Germany won, while maintaining upside if they won. Thank god I did that!
Sorry, but Dante and David Luiz as your CB’s? No way. Both make bad decisions. Luiz thinks he’s midfielder which is why he played in front of Cahill and Terry at Chelsea. If you go back and watch the goals, he was almost never where he was supposed to be as a CB. Dante was the one who scared me, but Luiz is the player who should most be blamed. The US would have beaten Brazil yesterday.
Anyway, 30 minutes into the game and my GF is crying uncontrollably. Two particular ladies as the bar start shouting “Oi! Oi! Oi!” at my girlfriend. She knows that many New Yorkers are not known for their their sensitivity, but she was ready to fight back. I had to intervene and calm things down. We ended up leaving at the half. She cried the whole way home. Aside from life and death events, probably one of the worst 45 minutes of my life.
My Germany v Brazil experience. I had the ol’ DVR set so I could watch the match after band practice later that night. I go to meet a couple of friends at a bar before hand and the match is on the TeeVee. No! I’m DVR’ing! I don’t want to see this yet.
Meh, how much is it going to ruin it for me if I see 15-20 minutes of the first half?
It was even until the 11th minute, carnage for the next 18 then a training exercise for the last 60.
I saw no offensive luck for Germany and no evidence of bad luck for Brazil. Double figures wouldn’t have surprised me. Which of the seven goals was lucky?
Where did those shots come in from? how close? what angle? how much pressure was the attacker put under? when did those shots occur? I haven’t seen a full breakdown of the stats but maybe you have?
I’m sorry but this is just fantasy. The Germans looked like they were going to slice through the Brazilian defence every time they went forward. Up front they were skillful and creative in possession whereas Brazil were a shambles at the back and one-dimensional up-front. There was a five minute period at the start where they probed the German defence and a 10 minute period at the start of the second half where they had shots on goal but other than that…their attack was poor, not as bad as their defence but compared to the slickness and creativity of the Germans they were very poor, not unlucky, just poor.
Novelty Bobble has the right idea. IIRC, all of Brazil’s shots (except the goal and one attempt by Hulk or someone off a rebound) came from the edge of the penalty area or beyond. All Germany’s shots except the third goal came from inside the penalty area (and mostly after they’d passed it around inside the area for ten minutes). Julio Cesar was committed the other way on almost all of them (and it was hardly his fault).
In other words, Brazil’s chances and Germany’s are not comparable. There’s a reason Neue only had to make one good save.
There was no luck involved in any of the German goals. It was abysmal defending combined with a German team that is going to make you pay for any defensive lapse. As others have said this could have been 20-1.
Brazil looked dejected after the second goal and simply gave up after the third one. Someone said that it looked like it was 11 players verses 9. The amount of space available to German players and the number of unmarked players was something I have never seen before.
There is absolutely nothing positive that can be said about Brasil’s performance.
Fair enough, had things gone a bit differently this game could have been semi competative. Its hard to say for certain how much this result was due to Germany being inherently better than the Brazilian team, or a temporary breakdown in Brazilian discipline. What we have seen in previous games this WC is that Brazil have been very average when playing with Neymar and DaSilva. Without them Brazil were a defeat waiting to happen. I dont think anyone saw just how bad a defeat could take place.
Right, and I’m someone who would look for the positives but I’ve tried and failed. You can be on the end of a drubbing and rightfully claim you did you best…er…no.
Or that you were on the end of genius performance…errrr…no.
It seemed like a mental capitulation as much as anything. I wonder whether they did the right thing in the build-up to this match by putting so much emphasis on the Neymar absence? Did they talk themselves in thinking that it was impossible?
I’ve certainly never seen an all-round worse performance by a comparable team of that standing.
Agreed, the Argies have been very poor in my opinion. I guess its just the presence of Messi that makes people rate them highly because performance wise they don’t rate at all.
The danger of stats, they can be accurate yet at the same time so very very wrong.
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Also, Hulk plays for the Zenit in Russia, and I’ve lost a lot of respect for him. And how he begged out of the second half of this game after pretty much no-showing for the WC.
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Hulk has been a good footballer for the (St. Petersburg Russia) Zenit.
He was expensive but he’s been a fan favorite (konnechno - of course), he’s had problems with his coaches, most notably the departed Spaletti (not unusual). He used to dive a lot - and at first the Russian refs would give him the PK’s (which he sucks at). Now they mostly ignore it, however spectacular he makes it look. He still works it successfully in international play and I laugh; but hey - Luis Suarez ran on top of the back of a fallen Zenit defender Tomas Hubocan and got no penalty - so all is fair, I guess.
Still, I wouldn’t say Zenit fans don’t like him a lot. Even management.
The comment about him not playing the second half was pure speculation and pettiness on my behalf. Whether the Brazil coach decided about Ronaldinho and Hulk was to a) mercy them from 45 more minutes of torture or b) they needed rest for the big 3rd place game or c) whatever; I can not say so I retract the “begged”. Sorry Hulk. No Smash?
ETA: Hulk did set a record for shots on goal - 13 - without a goal. Just tough luck though, I think. Really!
