the final week of the world cup.
España x Germany - Wednesday
Uruguay x Netherlands - Tuesday
Vamos España!
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
5.7.10
30.5.10
Funny Caricatures of all the world cup teams
These are really funny, some more so than the other.
http://www.marca.com/albumes/2010/05/30/carteles_mundial/index.html
http://www.marca.com/albumes/2010/05/30/carteles_mundial/index.html
19.5.10
World Cup Preview #3: England
Other Reviews
Spain
Argentina
After narrowly failing to qualify for Euro 2008, England under Fabio Capello have made quick work of their world cup qualifying group and qualified for the World Cup with relative ease. While the qualification was never in doubt from what was an easy group, England under Capello have been a revelation, especially the manner in which they overcame Croatia, England's bogey team from Euro 2008 qualification.
However, the real test for England and Capello is the World Cup. Capello raised the stakes when he told the reporters that not reaching the final would be a failure. Brave posturing from the seasoned Italian.
Capello has announced the list of 30 players to be pruned to the final list of 23 in the coming weeks. No major surprises except for the surprise un-retirement of Jamie Carragher and the inclusion of the injured Gareth Barry.
The selection of the likes of Michael Dawson, Leighton Baines, Ledley King, Tom Huddlestone, Adam Johnson, Darren Bent et al, shows that Don Fabio has made good use of his time watching a lot of EPL games to identify and reward the in-form players irrespective of their teams. Only 5 strikers have been named in the list of 30 which means it is almost certain that all of them: Bent, Crouch, Defoe, Heskey and Rooney will in the final squad.
How does England play?
England under Capello have played with lot more discipline than they ever did under Eriksson or McLaren. 4-4-2 formation has been the norm with Rooney as the main striker and Heskey primarily used to take advantage of his size and pull the central defenders to make space for Rooney as well as Lampard or Barry to drive from the midfield. John Terry and King/Carragher will start in the central defence with Ashley Cole and Glen Johnson as the fullbacks. The midfield diamond will have Lampard at the top with Stevie G and Lennon/Milner on the edges and Barry/Carrick at the bottom of the diamond.
Pacy winger Theo Walcott will mostly be used as an impact sub in the 2nd halves. Defoe will most likely be the first change for Heskey especially if England is trailing. Ashley Cole is very good on the left overlapping and supporting the attack.
The problem with this England squad is the imbalance in talent among GK, Midfield, Defence & Forwards. England has a great set of midfield players, very good defense, average GK and average strike force with the exception of one Wayne Rooney.
How will the oppositions play against England?
Oppositions will try to shadow and mark out Rooney, try and limit his impact by dragging him to wide positions. This is the where Emile Heskey's contributions will be crucial. Although he is not a prolific goal-scorer by any means Capello likes him because he has been doing a great job complementing Rooney.
England is not a ball possession team by nature; although the likes of Lampard and Rooney can keep possession against the best and win back the ball. In the group phase they will face Algeria, Slovenia and the USA. None of these teams is known for their possession football so England won’t have to worry a lot about getting starved of the ball. USA seems to be toughest of the three opponents and England open their campaign against USA. USA is a counterattacking team and from the little I know about Slovenia they will also play a counter-attacking game against England. On the surface Algeria seems to be weakest of them ball but be aware that they eliminated the African Champions and the fancied and very talented Egypt.
I predict this group to produce some of the dullest games of the tournament.
How far England will go?
England are in the easy half of the draw, I fancy them to make it to semi-finals.
England should come out of the Group C on top. Then they might run into either Germany/Serbia/Ghana or even the feisty Australia (Group D has no walkover). England has the fire-power to prevail over anyone from group D in the round 2 (unless they run into an in-form Ghana with crowd behind them). We could potentially have a juicy quarter-final or semifinal matchup between England-Argentina (nothing stokes up people like an England- Argentina tie).
Prediction : Losing semi-finalist.
Caption on the team bus: Playing with Pride and Glory >>
Rating: 5/10. In one word, Mundane.
Other Reviews
Spain
Argentina
Spain
Argentina
After narrowly failing to qualify for Euro 2008, England under Fabio Capello have made quick work of their world cup qualifying group and qualified for the World Cup with relative ease. While the qualification was never in doubt from what was an easy group, England under Capello have been a revelation, especially the manner in which they overcame Croatia, England's bogey team from Euro 2008 qualification.
However, the real test for England and Capello is the World Cup. Capello raised the stakes when he told the reporters that not reaching the final would be a failure. Brave posturing from the seasoned Italian.
Capello has announced the list of 30 players to be pruned to the final list of 23 in the coming weeks. No major surprises except for the surprise un-retirement of Jamie Carragher and the inclusion of the injured Gareth Barry.
The selection of the likes of Michael Dawson, Leighton Baines, Ledley King, Tom Huddlestone, Adam Johnson, Darren Bent et al, shows that Don Fabio has made good use of his time watching a lot of EPL games to identify and reward the in-form players irrespective of their teams. Only 5 strikers have been named in the list of 30 which means it is almost certain that all of them: Bent, Crouch, Defoe, Heskey and Rooney will in the final squad.
How does England play?
England under Capello have played with lot more discipline than they ever did under Eriksson or McLaren. 4-4-2 formation has been the norm with Rooney as the main striker and Heskey primarily used to take advantage of his size and pull the central defenders to make space for Rooney as well as Lampard or Barry to drive from the midfield. John Terry and King/Carragher will start in the central defence with Ashley Cole and Glen Johnson as the fullbacks. The midfield diamond will have Lampard at the top with Stevie G and Lennon/Milner on the edges and Barry/Carrick at the bottom of the diamond.
Pacy winger Theo Walcott will mostly be used as an impact sub in the 2nd halves. Defoe will most likely be the first change for Heskey especially if England is trailing. Ashley Cole is very good on the left overlapping and supporting the attack.
The problem with this England squad is the imbalance in talent among GK, Midfield, Defence & Forwards. England has a great set of midfield players, very good defense, average GK and average strike force with the exception of one Wayne Rooney.
How will the oppositions play against England?
Oppositions will try to shadow and mark out Rooney, try and limit his impact by dragging him to wide positions. This is the where Emile Heskey's contributions will be crucial. Although he is not a prolific goal-scorer by any means Capello likes him because he has been doing a great job complementing Rooney.
England is not a ball possession team by nature; although the likes of Lampard and Rooney can keep possession against the best and win back the ball. In the group phase they will face Algeria, Slovenia and the USA. None of these teams is known for their possession football so England won’t have to worry a lot about getting starved of the ball. USA seems to be toughest of the three opponents and England open their campaign against USA. USA is a counterattacking team and from the little I know about Slovenia they will also play a counter-attacking game against England. On the surface Algeria seems to be weakest of them ball but be aware that they eliminated the African Champions and the fancied and very talented Egypt.
I predict this group to produce some of the dullest games of the tournament.
How far England will go?
England are in the easy half of the draw, I fancy them to make it to semi-finals.
England should come out of the Group C on top. Then they might run into either Germany/Serbia/Ghana or even the feisty Australia (Group D has no walkover). England has the fire-power to prevail over anyone from group D in the round 2 (unless they run into an in-form Ghana with crowd behind them). We could potentially have a juicy quarter-final or semifinal matchup between England-Argentina (nothing stokes up people like an England- Argentina tie).
Prediction : Losing semi-finalist.
Caption on the team bus: Playing with Pride and Glory >>
Rating: 5/10. In one word, Mundane.
Other Reviews
Spain
Argentina
28.6.08
A por ellos!!! oooooée
E S P A Ñ A
Vamos Vamos!!!
It all boils down to this. Spain X Germany. España X Alemania! the final.
In less than 24 hours, Spain will step on the field to end a generation of misery, ridicule, 'curse' (maldición) and finally do some justification to the vast talent they had in the past and the present.
44 years since their only Championship.
24 years since the last time they were in a Final.
There is a lot of pressure on this team to wipeout decades of disappointment of a nation who always were up with the best in the world as far as talent players and technical ability is concerned. But too often they cant rise in adversity. They seem to lose against opponents who seemed mentally tougher than themselves. Or too often they get ridden with internal strife in the squad.
Things have been refreshingly different this time around in the Spanish camp. Almost none of the players who featured in those losses in 2002, 2004 and 2006. Players like Torres and Fabregas exceling outside of Spain helped in giving an added dimension to the team. Aragones stuck to his guns by not including popular players who he didnt believe as a part of his setup in Raul and Joaquin.
After a tentative start (eventhough masked by the scoreline 4-1) against Russia, they faced a tough opponent in Sweden. Villa won it for Spain on a last gasp solo run in added time. the largely 2nd team came from behind to beat Greece 2-1 to complete a perfect group record.
And their reward for sweeping group D is a QF clash with dreaded, loathed Italy - the defending world champions. Spain always believed that they play better football than the Italians who are supposed to win through their sheer will to win, physical play and gamesmanship and cheeky tactics. The Italians have a 4 World Cups and a Euro to Spains only Euro.
Italy missing Pirlo, seemed to play for penalties from the get go. They stifled the more enterprising Spanish for all of 120 minutes. Penalties. Spain for once took their penalties with aplomb and riding on the 2 saves of Iker Casillas exorcised 2 ghosts in 1 match.
1. The Italians - The Spainish havent gotten past the Italian in 88 years.
2. QF curse - The Spanish have taken on the dubious tag of QF Bottlers as they havent gotten past that stage in a major cup for the past 20 odd years.
Semifinal against a resurgent Russian team who had beaten the dutch at their own game in a scintillating display of attacking and running football in the QF. Spain never worried about Russian resurgence despite all the hype and the gungho statements that the Russian's have come of age in the span of a few matches. Sadly for the Russians all those who believed in the hype didnt include the Spanish.
The slick spanish passing ran the Russians ragged for the better part of an hour before scoring the 1st and then the 2nd and then the 3rd to put them out of the tourney. In the process they lost David Villa for the final. A big loss. One that cant be filled without changing their tactics. Spain reverted to a 4-5-1 system and will employ them same against the Germans in the final today.
This is it. Spain are ready to end the wait of 44 years today.
There is no point in talking formations and tactics. Spain is playing against itself, its history and all the disappointment of its predecessors. To be fair, this bunch has already broken through the glass ceilings which seemed insurmountable in the past.
As the old saying goes :: Finals are to be won. And none remembers who finished 2nd.
Aupa España
Vamos a ganar!
Vamos Vamos!!!
It all boils down to this. Spain X Germany. España X Alemania! the final.
In less than 24 hours, Spain will step on the field to end a generation of misery, ridicule, 'curse' (maldición) and finally do some justification to the vast talent they had in the past and the present.
44 years since their only Championship.
24 years since the last time they were in a Final.
There is a lot of pressure on this team to wipeout decades of disappointment of a nation who always were up with the best in the world as far as talent players and technical ability is concerned. But too often they cant rise in adversity. They seem to lose against opponents who seemed mentally tougher than themselves. Or too often they get ridden with internal strife in the squad.
Things have been refreshingly different this time around in the Spanish camp. Almost none of the players who featured in those losses in 2002, 2004 and 2006. Players like Torres and Fabregas exceling outside of Spain helped in giving an added dimension to the team. Aragones stuck to his guns by not including popular players who he didnt believe as a part of his setup in Raul and Joaquin.
After a tentative start (eventhough masked by the scoreline 4-1) against Russia, they faced a tough opponent in Sweden. Villa won it for Spain on a last gasp solo run in added time. the largely 2nd team came from behind to beat Greece 2-1 to complete a perfect group record.
And their reward for sweeping group D is a QF clash with dreaded, loathed Italy - the defending world champions. Spain always believed that they play better football than the Italians who are supposed to win through their sheer will to win, physical play and gamesmanship and cheeky tactics. The Italians have a 4 World Cups and a Euro to Spains only Euro.
Italy missing Pirlo, seemed to play for penalties from the get go. They stifled the more enterprising Spanish for all of 120 minutes. Penalties. Spain for once took their penalties with aplomb and riding on the 2 saves of Iker Casillas exorcised 2 ghosts in 1 match.
1. The Italians - The Spainish havent gotten past the Italian in 88 years.
2. QF curse - The Spanish have taken on the dubious tag of QF Bottlers as they havent gotten past that stage in a major cup for the past 20 odd years.
Semifinal against a resurgent Russian team who had beaten the dutch at their own game in a scintillating display of attacking and running football in the QF. Spain never worried about Russian resurgence despite all the hype and the gungho statements that the Russian's have come of age in the span of a few matches. Sadly for the Russians all those who believed in the hype didnt include the Spanish.
The slick spanish passing ran the Russians ragged for the better part of an hour before scoring the 1st and then the 2nd and then the 3rd to put them out of the tourney. In the process they lost David Villa for the final. A big loss. One that cant be filled without changing their tactics. Spain reverted to a 4-5-1 system and will employ them same against the Germans in the final today.
This is it. Spain are ready to end the wait of 44 years today.
There is no point in talking formations and tactics. Spain is playing against itself, its history and all the disappointment of its predecessors. To be fair, this bunch has already broken through the glass ceilings which seemed insurmountable in the past.
As the old saying goes :: Finals are to be won. And none remembers who finished 2nd.
Aupa España
Vamos a ganar!
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