You know you're in trouble when...
Your answer to Spain's one-goal lead and dominance of possession is Kevin Kuranyi.
Or when it is easy to think that this match might have ended with as much as a four-goal difference in favor of Spain, even if by the same easy thinking Germany had managed to put one in.
Or when a conk on your captain's head makes him think he's playing for Italy instead of Germany.
Or when the hero of your semifinal victory is simply outrun to a ball he should have cleared, making your 38-year-old keeper look even slower than he really is (which is saying something).
Or (on a personal note) when the highest-quality sporting event you've seen in recent memory is over, leaving you a pitiful assortment of Reds' games, transfer rumors and Jekyll-and-Hyde performances from D.C. United to tide you over until late August.
Labels: sports
posted by John @ 9:55 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
1) Yes.
2) Yes.
3) Yes.
4) Yes, which makes me sad because Philipp Lahm is one of my favorite players.
5) Yes, yes, yes.
And it's almost not fair to blame Lahm. I mean, he should have cleared the ball, but Torres was at another level on that play, as evidenced by the "it won't go in if he doesn't kick it in that exact spot on that exact trajectory" strike.
Yeah, people have blamed Lehman for that which I think is a bit of over analysis and doesn't give Torres enough credit. When watching that in original real-time (i.e. not knowing that a goal is scored) it doesn't look like Torres has a chance. But it's the combination of a burst of speed, the physical strength to nip in, and the delicate touch to flick it over Lehman but also keep it in the bottom left corner. Pretty unreal.
It's actually a great example of why I love Torres. He scored a boatload of goals this year and very few were bombs. Most were precise shots where he positions his body just right and hits the ball with enough pace and accuracy to put it beyond everyone.
That was the brilliance of Lahm's goal against Turkey too. He opened his body and looked for all the world to be going far-post and the Turkish keeper sees this and starts to cheat. Which is about the time he hooks it into the near corner.
This is the kind of thing I'm just starting to attempt when I play now at the ripe age of 34 and I wish someone would have coached this into me at a younger age. There was a lot of instruction on proper shooting technique, but I don't remember any coach every saying anything about using that body shape to fool the keeper. Quality strikers do it all the time, and once again it's one of the things I've never heard an American announcer point out.
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