Well done, enjoy your night.
Can you hear my teeth grinding from there?
Deleted double post
Bit of a mistake by the coach and Ronaldo methinks. Normally you place your two best PK takers fist and last. But in such a tight affair, I would think you’d want to assure that the “best player in the world” get his chance to kick. In fact, as I mentioned upthread, Iker’s save on their first short was critical to the outcome.
–
Thanks a bunch, Bilbo…I think “enjoying the night” for me is going to be a hot shower, dinner & bed! I’m physically & emotionally exhausted.
I suspect people will play it as Ronaldo choking, not wanting to take a penalty. Personally I think he was perfectly willing to take one, but badly misjudged things. He probably guessed it would go to the fifth penalty which would be a real pressure kick, so he would get the glory of taking that, possibly to win the match.
If so, a very misjudged plan.
I don’t think that many people will honestly believe he didn’t want to take a penaltykick. Au contraire, he wanted the glory… be the one that sealed the thing for Portugal. It is easy to say it was wrong with hindsight, but the fact is that the 5th penalty (from the team that goes second) is more often the do or die spotkick, than others; either to win the thing, or to stay in it.
Just hope the game tomorrow is better (and done in 90 min.).
I agree that it’s not much of a mystery why CR7 wanted to go last. He wanted to be the one everybody ran to when he saved the day. It’s pretty well within character.
Here’s the thing, I don’t disagree with Polar Bear that often the most pressure-packed kick is the fifth for the team shooting second. BUT that’s assuming that all others have done their job. Which is hardly the case in major tournaments (see CL, Euros & WC), meaning that to me, the first kick on either side is THE most pressure-packed of all, as you’ll often see your teammates either get a charge or become demoralized by the result.
Again, not pointing fingers as Ronaldo plays for my club team – and I do remember him going first against Bayern and missing just a few weeks ago – but again, Iker’s save on Portugal’s fist shot -second in series – was the game breaker; we’d just had Xabi, by far our best PK taker, stopped. Add to that if you have your second best PK kicker last, you’re still talking about someone who normally gets over 85% of them in.
Case in point, Cesc is not even first three at Barça in taking PK’s, but after putting him on the spot for the first time in years vs Italy in '08, he delivered. Now that’s he’s done it again, who would you rather have fifth other than him? Meaning it’s not just stats, but feelings.
All that said, and as much as I like Ronaldo’s play for Madrid, I admit he is certainly a glory-hunter prior to a team player. So yeah, not hard to explain.
Both teams did a great job defending and shutting down each others offenses.
The extra-time was much more like the Spain we know. Lacking the killer touch but they certainly ramped it up.
Here’s hoping that they can give us more of that in final, I still favour Germany though.
I may be alone, but I really liked yesterday’s match. I guess it’s just being impressed when a team actually goes at Spain, and then they’re not “boring” when they actually have an opponent pressuring them. I came away really impressed with Coentrao and Alves for Portugal. I was concerned about 3 of the 4 defenders having yellow cards going into extra time, but that didn’t matter in the end. Ronaldo had his chances and didn’t take them.
One thing that really helps Spain play with such cohesiveness is that so many players are from one of Barca, Real Madrid, or Valencia so that they always know what to do. I think Portugal has the same benefit with Sporting and Porto, and probably Benfica, too, though I didn’t recognize which players were Benfica products as much as the other two clubs.
Whether it’s Germany or Italy (go Germany!), at least the final will have a team that isn’t afraid to have a go at Spain and actually knows how to play with the ball. That doesn’t mean that Spain won’t control the game, but it should be more like yesterday than, say, England vs Italy.
Please, Germany, win tonight, then destroy spain, Pretty tired of watching tippi tappy football.
As much as I love to see players like Alonso, Iniesta and Xavi playing it’s the most frustrating, boring football imaginable (well, maybe cattenacio is worse) and watching Germany playing open direct passing and attacking football has been one of the highlights of the championship so far.
But the Spain we know does not have a killer’s touch at all. They control a lot but score far too little. The Spain we saw during regular time was much more like the Spain we know - the one that barely scores. For instance, Spain won all of the post-group games during the World Cup two years ago by just 1-0. Their lack of a killer instinct is a liability, because if they can’t convert their dominance into goals (much like Barca couldn’t against Chelsea this year or against Inter two years ago) then they might run into trouble sooner or later. They were lucky to win yesterday, the PK series might easily have turned out otherwise. In a sense, they were also lucky to win the World Cup - the Dutch came much closer to scoring during regular time than the Spanish did.
That is sort of what I meant but I did put it rather clumsily. It is why I see an on-form Torres as the missing link. If he can show his elegant, clinical finishing again then Spain become a much more potent force (and they are pretty bloody good anyway)
But can he get that form back? Will he be trusted? I do know that when he makes the right runs he invites the right pass and on-form I’ve seen few better strikers at receiving and dispatching the ball. Unfortunately that part of his game evaporated along with his confidence recently and who knows if it will return. Perhaps the big game will be a spark?
In other news, Bert van Marwijk has stepped down as head coach of the Dutch national team. It’s sad to see him go, although obviously understandable. After all, going out in the group phase did not happen since 1980, and I think losing all three games was a first. Still, I think he was the best coach we had since Rinus Michels - and some of his predecessors include Advocaat, Van Gaal, and Hiddink. He had a more pleasant way of dealing with the media than Van Basten or Advocaat, which was refreshing, and he’s not part of the Johan Cruyff clique that runs (or: tries to run) Ajax. I hope he goes on to do many more great things.
I don’t think that he is entirely to blame for this debacle either. Although he made some controversial choices and stubbornly stuck with them until it was too late, from what has come out of the Dutch team after the Portugal game, it seems they were pretty much an uncontrollable bunch of egos that could not be built into a team like they could two years ago. Van Persie thought he was entitled to more because he was EPL top scorer; Huntelaar and Van der Vaart were pissed off they weren’t playing; Affelay thought he deserved more respect because he plays for Barcelona; people did not respect Van Bommel (the captain) because he’d defend Van Marwijk, who is also his son in law; and people did not respect Van Marwijk and the decisions he made, with Arjen Robben telling him to STFU on several occasions. Apparently the key effort at keeping things together came from Sneijder - someone noted previously for being a bit of a diva.
It’s not yet clear who is going to be the next coach, but it’s not surprising to me that Koeman (who coaches Feyenoord) and De Boer (who coaches another team) have not shown interest. It might have been necessary for Van Marwijk to go, but it certainly will not be sufficient.
Of course, Van Bommel is Van Marwijk’s son-in-law, and not the other way around. Should be obvious, but I thought I’d clarify 
Yeah there seems to have been a lot going on in the Dutch camp (the Frnch one as well btw, Nasri could be suspended for up to two years), but most of these issues seem to have been around 2 years ago as well… except nobody cared because we were winning.
I don’t agree with blaming Van Marwijk for the teams he chose (maybe the squad though). All the press kept going on about dropping one of the defensive midfielders… once he did that for the Portugal game (and part of the Germany game) we were overrun. Our defense was just far too bad to survive without the proper cover and vd Vaart just hasn’t got the legs to get back in time. If anything, the Portugal game showed that Van Marwijk was right and the backseat drivers should stfu. Off course, now noone in the press is willing to accept they were wrong (I’m looking at you Johan Derksen).
Anyhow, we’d better get back on track and talk about teams who are actually still in the tournament. It better be a good game tonight, after the two 0-0 games with penalties.
Too bad ESPN couldn’t just let Ballack interview Klinsmann in German and subtitle it, might have been more illuminating.
He has many personality flaws, but he sure knows how to score goals.
Good goal Italy. This will be real test for Germany. Apparently they haven’t been a goal behind in a competitive game since 2008. If they fancy themselves as champions this is exactly how they prove themselves.
Well, except for the semi against Spain in 2010:).