Germany v Serbia: Some Very Incoherent Remarks

Just finished watching the NBA Finals Game 7 and it was a real stinker, yet also incredibly intense (kinda like most football games these days, minus the intensity, that is -- Good God, I'm beginning to sound like one of these American soccer haters). Kobe, whose place among the least likable athletes alive is safe and secure, shot 6-24 and still won the Finals MVP trophy. Which reminds me that Messi, who's very likable - if only in the same way that one likes a cute (and talented) pony - will get the FIFA equivalent even if he scores an own goal in the final against Spain, Greece, North Korea, Mexico, or Uruguay (well, some team other than France). In order to get there, however, Argentina will have to beat...uh, Germany (in the quarterfinals if both teams win their group and round of 16 games).

So, just how good are these Germans? Well, for once, their win stood out as much as it did mainly because so many first round games really, really sucked. Tomorrow (that's 6 hours from now, 4:30 in the morning) should give us a better idea of what the team's really made of because Serbia has some decent attacking players and scoring won't be as easy as against Australia. On the other hand, Serbia may, as my brother likes to call it, "go all Yugo on us," and collapse after an early German goal (followed by brutal fouls, red cards, conspiracy theories, death threats against the Pope and Merkel, and finally, resignation).

I can't help but think that a draw wouldn't be a bad result for Germany as the hype around the team has already reached ridiculous proportions and, in any case, teams need to peak at the right time (i.e., not before the semifinals). On the other hand, Löw has said that he wants to avoid a "final" against Ghana and is not going to content himself with a draw. Personally, I have a really, really bad feeling about the Serbia game and wouldn't be surprised if Germany lost (97.76% of my predictions have been wrong so far).

Another funny feeling I have is that the first knock-out round will see some incredible match-ups, for example, Brazil v Spain, and Germany v England. Rooney's already looking forward to it (why are there so few incest jokes about him? Surely, people are afraid of him?). The somewhat thin-skinned English reaction to Beckenbauer's "kick-and-rush" comments is in fact more telling of their own parochialism than anything else: nobody in their right mind takes the Kaiser's verbal diarrhea seriously anymore (the man couldn't analyze a football game if his life depended on it). This is indeed a nice segue to an early assessment of ESPN's World Cup coverage: overall pretty, pretty, pretty good. As to their pundits: Ruud Gullit is a class act, Steve McManaman's surprisingly annoying, and Jürgen Klinsmann in English (he says "awesome" a lot) is just as unbearable as Jürgen Klinsmann in Swabian.

God, I still love watching this game...