The quarterfinals are here

To follow up from the last entry, of course Germany DID rebound and put in a similar performance of fussball to what we saw when they hosted the World Cup.
Lots of pressure on the opponent. Especially in the beginning they overran Portugal and throughout the game it was evident just how much physically stronger Germany were on almost every position. Portugal came back though and are just too good a side to keep down.
From the back four to the flexible attack up front they had been best balanced team so far of the tournament.
Unfortunately their goalkeeper Ricardo can single handedly shift however good that balance is, to something resembling disaster.
He is horrible on set pieces and Germany, the strongest team in the air, took full advantage.
He just does not commit himself. Not to getting in position to make a save and not to getting in position to go for the kick.
He always ends up somewhere in between positioning himself where he is completely useless.
That meant two german goals and a mountain to climb for Portugal.
It was never impossible though or seemed very unlikely.
Germany continued to have their fullbacks going forward while at the same time Portugal had their wings going very little backwards.
That meant great acres of space and lots of open play with many scoring chances for both teams.

Germany will be tough to beat. Their pressure is so hard to resist.
During the World Cup it took a masterful Italian performance to do it and the question is if any team is capable of something similar this time around.
Holland would be my best guess but them going to the final is of course far from given.
In fact I think Russia will have a great chance of knocking them out. But more on that later.
Spain with their possesion football, unless it's taken to a new level by Fabregas, I think would be underdogs too, though because of the duo up front can never be counted out.
That's the difference of Spain this year and recent years.
A truly deadly duo that even when they're being shut down physically or tactically by another team, will still be dangerous, virtually on their own, giving them a realistic winning chance.

It just has to be noted though that Germany overcame, or resisted if you will, a team playing better possesion football than Spain are right now when they beat Argentina in the World Cup.
For Spain to reach Argentina level and really trouble Germany, Fabregas just has to play.
Xavi has been a great playmaker for many years and is still one of the best, there aren't that many anyway, but for almost a decade now he has had the chance to produce the magic for Spain and with absolutely nothing to show for it.
At this point in their respective careers, Fabregas does every single thing I can possibly think of a little better than Xavi.

If "old man Aragones" wants to break the curse, Fabregas needs to play.

Now as always I support Italy and I won't mind at all not seeing Fabregas in what will be an epic match but it does hurt a little to see a player who I think is probably top 5 in the world sitting on the bench.
If Italy goes out, it's Spain who I'll be rooting for, and seeing them reduce their chances of FINALLY winning a trophy is just heartbreaking.

With regards to the Croatia - Turkey match I don't really have much to add other than what I already touched upon in the previous entries.
I think Turkey have overachieved and even if Bilic puts in the midfield he did against Austria, I still think there is a chance Croatia can control them.
It will just be more difficult and give Turkey yet another chance of escaping jail.
However if Croatia play like they did against Germany, they SHOULD win. It's that simple.

The two other games are extremely interesting and I look immensely forward to both.

Spain vs Italy is just a classic rivalry and the atmosphere will resemble life and death.
I think it will be a close game and I doubt there will be more than a couple of goals scored.
0-0 1-0 1-1 or 2-0 with a late goal seems like the most likely scenarios.
I don't even know the point of predicting a winner. It's like 51-49 to either one of the sides.
It's different styles clashing and whoever can execute theirs the better will win.
Historically that's been Italy but with all the different intangibles for this one, who knows?
I just know I'll be watching and maybe write a more detailed preview in an upcoming entry.

The other match however I will write about for sure.
Probably in the next entry where I'll outline my bold prediction of a Russian victory.
Have I lost my mind? Some seem to think so but if Russia don't win I'll just have to pay since I've convinced myself so badly that a good bet on the Russian victory just could not be resisted.
It seems like such great value, for reasons coming up in the next entry, so all I can say is GO RUSSIA!!!!!!!!

In honour of probably my favorite Russian player of all time, Aleksandr Zavarov



revenge 1988 and win me some moneyz while you do it!

Croatia - Austria 1-0

HE IS NOT WEARING ANY CLOTHES!

Yes that is the very peculiar feeling this game left me with.

But first things first. Croatia started like you would expect.
Looking quite dominant against, host nation or not, what's been widely predicted to be by far the weakest team in the competition.
FIFA world rankings are usually something very useless and should always be taken with a grain of salt, but being ranked 92 in the world and 43 in Europe, behind respectively Mozambique and Iceland, that can't be too good, can it?
Well that's exactly where Austria is ranked.

They'd need a something like a comeback from the great Toni Polster to overcome overwhelming odds like that, right?

Or how about that entire team?
The "great" Austria team of the late 80s, early 90s.
Ranked much higher than todays current crop and who actually qaulified, by winning actual matches, for international competition.

Well for starters Toni Polster is busy doing this. Saving, not austrian football


but rather austrian schlager. Or whatever the hell that is.

This is him actually singing on a tv show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o--KMfUAmFw

The guy obviously has better things to do these days than scoring goals!

And his great team?

Well they couldn't even beat this rather odd looking man!



Remember what at the time was like the greatest upset ever?
The Faroe Islands winning a game basically for the first time ever, beating "mighty" Austria 1-0

If you don't, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GueLDYPe050

Check out those saves!

Like one austrian user comments: "We couldn't beat anyone after that".

That actually makes perfect sense!

"Wipes tear from eye".

No all in all it probably is a lot better just to let the current team play and hope for something extraordinary to happen in order to beat those brutal odds.

Well, enter yesterday's game.

Like I said, Croatia started out pretty good. Recieved a rather dubious penalty and 1-0 it is.
Then what I think is something pretty extraordinary, entered the game.

First of all Austria got a make up call, or non call if you will, from the horrible referee when Pogatetz escaped an obvious second yellow card, when he more or less assaulted the very hard working Olic.

And then I thought the Croatia manager and of course not least national hero, Slaven Bilic showed extraordinary tactical incompetence, basically doing everything he could, mostly by doing nothing, to help Austria get a good result.
Who needs Toni Polster when you're facing Slaven Bilic?

What the Austrians really neeeded, like in many ways the Swiss in the opener, was of course some luck and it just wasn't to be, but Slaven Bilic, WHAT THE HELL MAN?

I think it's ok that us the fans to may not know that Austria for some reason still play 3-5-2 or 3-4-3.
but that you the manager either wasn't aware of this or did know about it only to completely fail to adjust, is just horrible and will without a doubt mean that your team won't go very far.

I just can't get over Bilic playing a midfield without any defensive midfielders.
I don't even remember when I last saw a team at high level last do this?
And no absolutely not, Niko Kovac will never be a good defensive midfielder.
Whatever strong points he still has left, and they're not all that many, are still technical ones.
It's almost like Bilic is stuck somewhere in the past and in a way that makes sense.
Croatia traditionally hasn't really had pure defensive midfielders but rather very all-round ones.
Players both strong technically and physically often with a mean streak abling them to impose themselves on a match. One way or the other. Think someone like Asanovic:


But this current midfield of Kranjcar, Modric and Niko Kovac are severely lacking in the physical department and really only one of them, Modric obviously, is up to the high technical standard of the croatian midfielders from the past.

A central midfield of Modric and Kovac just will not work. It's too weak.
It almost cost them the match against probably the worst team in the competition. What won't it do against better teams?
Maybe just maybe against typical 4-4-2 teams they'll be able to control the match but there will still be way too many holes and playing four midfielders like that against a 3-4-3 - 3-5-2 where you just get run over by midfielders, wings and in this particular case, EVEN WING-BACKS!
What was Bilic thinking or maybe he just wasn't thinking at all...

Someone like Modric, and even a Kranjcar, has to have two midfielders behind him or at least when defending make adjustments and be put on the wing.
They actually do have the hard working forwards to at least try and pull that of.
But this is like kindergarden knowledge for a coach and been done by every coach with every number 10 type of player now, for I don't even know how many years...
Is Bilic a complete idiot? Is he wearing any clothes?

Hopefully for Croatia it's just being the national hero that's gone to his head and that he underestimated Austria, and will take other teams much more seriously, because what we saw in this match from them, with this lineup, these tactics, will only lead to failure.
They will not beat Poland playing like that and obviously not a very strong looking Germany.

Following this match it's very hard to get away from thinking Bilic may very well be a disaster tactically.
And who knows, maybe he was just very lucky in the qualification to run into the only one who was actually worse?