Dark But Hardly Comfortless

It was a game of three thirds - as opposed to the archetypal two halves. The outer panels of the triptych were dominated by a superb Germany: skilful, mobile, fluid, intelligent, in contrast to England who simply weren't. It was just about at the fifteen minute mark that I consciously thought: we are going to get hammered. And after the Podolski goal I seriously thought five or six were on the cards. Then came the central panel, a curious exercise in premiership blood & thunderation. But even if the Lampard not-a-goal had been-a-goal I don't see how anyone seriously might have thought that Germany were going to lose. Even at the beginning of the second half when England still had much of the play, Germany looked the more likely to score more than once - as, of course, they did. Both of Mueller's goals on the break I saw coming as soon as I glanced across at England's lack of cover, as did most of the world, I guess.

On the build-up to Mueller's second, Barry's startling lack of pace against the cannily effective Oezil brought back memories of myself lumbering around in park football as an overage thirty-something being skinned by whippet-ike youngsters around nineteen, attempting vainly to clip their heels as they motored around me into the distance. But I was never paid as much as Barry, of course. In fact, I was, rightly, never paid at all. Nor were any of our back four who still rarely (actually, I think never) conceded dumb route one goals like Germany's first.

Anyway, I'm trying to take the defeat well and haven't done so badly today, though I lost a fair amount of sleep last night. I'm reminding myself of just how good the Germans were (wasn't Shweinsteiger brilliant even though not many of the reports have been mentioning him?!) and what a pleasure it was to witness such great football. I remember adopting the same outlook after Gunter Netzer's Germany thumped England at Wembley in the early seventies, though it didn't work for me then. But now I'm older and a lot more tired and have put up with these situations for many more years. And the teams who've made it into the quarter finals so far have oodles to offer (though I'm sorry that the USA didn't make it, always being good for the unexpected.)

Can Germany go all the way? It would be nice to think so - a triumph for the beautiful game. But that defence is oddly brittle for a German team - hence the atypical central thirty minutes last night. And I can't see Argentina allowing anyone to pull them around at the back as the puppet-show otherwise known as Johnson, Upson, Terry and Cole did.