I think we have a clear cut favorite to win The 2010 World Cup now..

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Who left in this tournament can play with this German team?


wil.
 

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Spain and even the Netherlands have a way better defensive line than ARG.
Germany will also be missing one of their key players (Mueller) in the semi-finale (possibly vs Spain). If Spain advances tonight, I expect a very close game between Spain and Germany in the next round.
 

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Uh, Spain.

Spain is still my clear favorite.
 

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I am with you Wil but losing their striker next game will hurt them. As I posted weeks ago, I have only wagered on Germany since this Cup started and they turned a 2.30 return today. The only problem is now they will no longer be dogs like this again but it's been a good run.
 

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Spain beat Germany in the European Championship two years ago.
 

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Spain beat Germany in the European Championship two years ago.
Yes, but Spain was playing better back then, especially Torres was in outstanding form and is a no show in Sth Africa so far. And the German team has a very different look compared to 2008.
 

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Spain is better than Germany. 3-1 Spain if the match happens.
 

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Netherlands. They will easily take out Uruguay leaving only the winner of Germany/Spain or Paraguay. They play excellent defense, midfield play, ball control, passing and two top notch strikers in Sneijder and Robben. This is the year of the Orange!
 

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I'm with Wil, Germany is playing their best right now.

I know jack shit about soccer, but I know a hot team and I appreciate know tradition
 

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Don't forget that Serbia beat Germany a few short weeks ago. These matches can be a surprise.
 

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Don't forget that Serbia beat Germany a few short weeks ago. These matches can be a surprise.
To me it ws more like Germany beating themselves in that particular game because they had lots of really good scoring opportunities, but missed to convert a single one, including a penalty kick...but quantumleap is absolutely right, Germany wouldn't be the 1st hot team, that gets eliminated more or less surprisingly.
Especially anybody who refers to Spain during the 2008 European Cup should remember how people wanted to hand over the trophy to the Netherlands after they played phenomenal during group stage and beat France 3-0 and Italy 4-1...just to be eliminated by Gus Huddink and his Russian team in the quarter finals.

Müller will be missed vs Spain, will be interesting to see who Löw puts in to replace him: Best choice in my opinion would be Toni Kroos, one of the biggest soccer talents in German soccer. Compared to Kroos he lacks on his defensive skills, but offensively this probably would be the best fit. He might have the best shooting technique on the whole team (only other player with similar shooting skills is Podolski), his crosses from either left or right wing are precise and he has great passing skills. But his transition game is slower than Müller and he rarely played on the wing for Bayer Leverkusen (played centre midfield).
Müller might also be Trochowski, who imo would more of a downgrade than Kroos, but you never know.
Either way you shouldn't overreact to todays game. Yes, Germany played another great game, but the early goal helped a lot and like I said before, Argentinas defense is nothing special at all. Spain and the Netherlands will both be teams with better defenses, better spacing defensively and with great defensive midfielders...Germany will have a lot more problems in my opinion to find holes in these defensive lines.
And while Spain and Netherlands haven't played that flashy so far, they always seemed to control their games (if you take away the 1st half by NED vs BRA), created a couple of good scoring opportunities and played solid defense. The Netherlands are the only team so far to win all their games and allowed just one goal if you take away the two penalty shots. Spain on the other hand had to play against 4 teams, who pretty much defended with 11 players and lined up with 10 men around their penalty box. So it's not that surprising, that Spain hasn't been as spectacular yet, but they should get more room to play with against a more offensive minded German team (similar to their game vs Chile, in which they scored twice early and then just tried to secure the win vs a decimated team from Chile to advance to the ko-stage ).
But if Spain wants to win that game, they still have to vastly improve on one aspect of their game: Their transition game and related to that, their game pace. In their match vs Portugal the Spaniards showed huge holes defensively, when Portugal counter attacked and switched quickly to their offense after getting Spain to turn the ball over. Paraguay only did that twice, but these two situations exposed the Spanish defense, too.
Offensively Spain had huge problems vs Portugal and Paraguay because both kept their defense deep in their own half and played with two 4-man defensive lines...so since Spain always needed lots of time to get on offense, Paraguay had ample time to organise their defense and get all their players back and back into position. If Spain keeps taking that much time after turnovers by Germany, I doubt they will get much scoring opportunities at all since Germany played great team defense vs ARG today and their won't be much room to maneuver around...

Another thing I want to point out: While the Netherlands came back from a 0-1 deficit vs Brazil and turned the game around, neither Spain nor Germany were able to do such thing. Both teams lost their games, when they trailed 0-1 (Spain vs Switzerland, Germany vs Serbia, although both teams were the better team in both games imo and for most part dominated the game, Germany was also down one man or 60min) and both teams looked shaky under pressure:
Germany struggled and played their only bad game vs Ghana, when there was lots of pressure on them because they were on the brink of elimination during group stage for the 1st time EVER and Spain was very nervous vs Portugal and Paraguay and made a couple of bad mistakes, creating great scoring opportunities for their opponents.
So nerves could be a factor in that game and both teams struggled as soon as things didn't go their way.
 

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looks like it's wide open for 3 teams. this is what sports is all about.
 

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Alemania...

JOHANNESBURG — Germany is the team to beat as the World Cup comes down to four contenders, with Spain, the Netherlands and Uruguay looking for a way to beat a German team that has peaked at just the right time.

With 13 goals in five games, Germany has sent home Argentina and England with ease, scoring four goals each time. The three other semifinalists have been less impressive.
At the end of the first round, South American teams were set to dominate the competition. Only Uruguay remains, with favorite Brazil falling to the well-organized Dutch.

Uruguay meets the Netherlands on Tuesday and European champion Spain faces three-time World Cup winner Germany on Wednesday for places in the final.

The Europeans and South Americans stand at 9-9 after 18 World Cups, so one of them is guaranteed to edge ahead in the July 11 final at Soccer City. No European team has won a World Cup staged outside the continent.
On current form, that final looks like a Netherlands-Germany matchup, a meeting of two neighbors who also played in the 1974 title game when the Germans won on home soil.
Germany outplayed Argentina 4-0 in Cape Town on Saturday with Miroslav Klose scoring twice to take his total from three World Cups to 14 goals. He has two more games to beat the career record of 15 by Brazil's Ronaldo.

The Germans, who have not won the title since 1990, also got four goals against Australia and England. They are looking ominously good.

"What the team showed, it was not only international level, but the level of champions," coach Joachim Loew said after Germany knocked out one of the tournament favorites. "It was absolute class."
Supremely organized and devastating on the counterattack, Germany has blended experience and youth. While 20-year-old Thomas Mueller has added three goals to 32-year-old Klose's four, 21-year-old Mesut Oezil supports neatly in midfield with the experienced yet young Bastian Schweinsteiger. The whole team has a consistent, solid look.

Spain, by contrast, has stumbled on its way to the final four, edging Paraguay 1-0 in the quarterfinal on Saturday after both teams missed penalty kicks.

"A rival like Germany works better for us than one like we had in Paraguay," said David Villa, who is one shy of matching Raul Gonzalez's national record of 44 international goals.
"Germany's a great team with an incredible run of results, always a tough opponent and probably the team in best form at this World Cup. But it's a game of 90 minutes between two great teams and anything can happen."

The Spaniards lost their opening game to Switzerland. Though little has changed from the squad that won Euro 2008 so convincingly, Vicente del Bosque's team bears slight resemblance to that lineup.
With Fernando Torres slow to recover from knee surgery and Xavi struggling to recapture his high standards, Villa has done the heavy lifting. If the Spaniards can't lift their game in the semifinal, the Germans look like a good bet to go through to a record eighth final.

"Two of the best teams in the World Cup have to play in the semifinal, so unlucky for one of them," said Torres. "They are an attacking team and they will try to win, try to attack. But we will have more space to go at them."
At one stage, a South American sweep of the semifinals was a strong possibility, with four nations in the quarterfinals and all facing different teams.

With Brazil and Argentina going out in the quarterfinals, however, Uruguay — a 100-1 shot when the tournament began — is left to take the title back to South America, a tough task indeed.
The Dutch take on Uruguay in Cape Town in what will feel like a home game.

On top of the 5,000 or so Dutch fans who have traveled to the World Cup, there are 20,000 compatriots who have settled in the coastal city over the years. Although they may not all have tickets, they will be cheering the team in bars and squares.

"We hear the euphoria back home is incredible and it's a shame that we cannot experience it," said Netherlands coach Bert van Marwijk, whose team knocked out five-time champion Brazil 2-1 on Friday.
Dutch striker Robin van Persie injured his left arm, but has been cleared to play. So has defender Joris Mathijsen, who missed the Brazil game with a right knee problem.

Both teams definitely will be without two players because of suspensions.

The Dutch won't have midfielder Nigel de Jong and defender Gregory van der Wiel because they received two yellow cards in the tournament. The same applies to Uruguay defender Jorge Fucile.
Striker Luis Suarez, who has been one of the stars of the competition, is banned for a straight red card for deliberately blocking the ball with his hands on his goal line in the final minute of extra time against Ghana.

Coach Oscar Tabarez, whose team has reached this far for the first time since 1970, denied that Suarez was cheating. But the incident took some of the gloss away from Uruguay's impressive revival under a coach who also guided the team in 1990 and returned for his second spell in 2006.
"It's beautiful," he said. "It's difficult to take in what's happened. We are just very happy.

"I don't know whether this is the rebirth of Uruguayan football. It could be as long as we don't go another 20 years or so without getting to this stage."

By ROBERT MILLWARD (AP)
 

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The kiss of death....

Might as well tear up my +375 ticket....

I'm hitting over 80% while betting on every World Cup game in the tourney. Either I know my shit or I'm the luckiest SOB on the planet. Either way, I'll take it.
 

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Spain is the best team remaining. Player for player the best talent and they work well as a team. Of course no serious drop off to the Netherlands and Germany.

imo Spain should be a slightly bigger fav against Germany. -135ish closer to reality.
 

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