See Germany win the World Cup

119 minutes of hope, shattered by a beautiful Italian goal. And another beautiful Italian goal.
It was a great World Cup for Germany. We lost against the better team. I am disappointed we didn’t make the final, but it was a great match, a great struggle, and fair is fair, the better team won in the end. They scored. It’s that simple. That doesn’t mean I didn’t drown my sorrow in beer. Gosh, I feel rotten.

Edit: When asked my colleagues if I had a special ritual before the match, I answered that I watched every match so far at home, and that I’d be watching this one at home, too. Then, 10 minutes before the kick-off, an electricity brown-out occured in my street, and there I was, TV-less. It took bf and me 25 minutes to find a pub with electricity and a big screen. We stayed and watched in the Tig Barra As much as I like the Tig Barra, watching the match somewhere else than at home probably jinxed it. I send a pox to NUON, the Amsterdam electricity giant.

Because an Argentinian national team player had to kick a German player in the balls after the penalty shoot-out, there was a brawl on the pitch during which Torsten Frings “retalliated” after being hit in the face. The “hittee” Cruz told the “Gazetta della Sport” that he didn’t even feel anything. Nevertheless the Fifa decided to be all anal retentive and sentenced him to sitting out the semi-final. Of course, Frings should have been the bigger man and walked away. You try to do this 30 seconds after you have played 2 hours of football and winning a penalty-thriller and seeing your co-manager being attacked and one of your teammates kicked in the bells-and-tackle. Thanks a lot, Argentina for being sore, sore losers. Had they just sat on the ground and cried (like the English team), Frings would be playing tonight.

Edit: I shouldn’t slag off the England team. They got knocked out purely because Sven-Göran Eriksson didn’t bring enough strikers. They clearly accepted their defeat. Even with tears in their eyes they proved to being gentlemen, quite the opposite of Argentina.

... to start this goal when Germany are only two matches away from winning.
But my belief in the German team has only grown since the opening match, and over the last week, I have become more and more convinced that they can actually DO this!
I have watched every match of the German team, plus the majority of the other matches as well. Now there are only four teams left, and taking the “Heimvorteil” = home advantage into consideration, I genuinely think they can pull this off, now.
Since I am not in Germany, but in Oranje-Land, I support mainly with a subversive smile, especially after seeing my Dutch neighbour exchanging the orange Wehrmacht-helmet for a Brazil t-shirt on Friday, only to see his second choice fail against France. The words “Njaaa-nja-nja-njaaa-njaaa” come to mind.