Surprise, Surprise

look who's walkin...no not samson from half baked. Somewhere Oliver Kahn is smiling. It was a real stinker today from the Germans, but its has to be a feeling of ecstasy for Croatia who just flat outplayed their opponent. What a difference 4 days makes too, because these were two completely different sides than we saw in their first match.

This wasn't the well-oiled machine that we saw dispose of Poland. This German side laid an egg, in every sense of the expression today. They will be dissapointed to concede both of the goals. Jansen was slow to react to the cross for the first, and Lehman made a meal of the deflection for the second. The German coach, Yogi bear, or jogi whatever they like to call him selected a horrible team. Mario Gomez was poor, at best, and yet he left him on for close to an hour. Sweinsteiger changed the game immediately and its still a mystery to me how he was not starting in favor of Fritz? who is Fritz? Its too bad he couldn't keep his composure and picked up that red card, thats uncharateristic of him, from what I've seen at Bayern.

But even still, it should never have come to that. Odonkor was ineefective on the right, and everything the Germans had was coming down the left flank through Sweinsteiger. I still don't know why he waited until the 80th minute to bring Kuranyi on, I hate it when managers do that. If you expect a player to make an impact, then give him a proper chance to do so. None the less, Germany simply couldn't get the ball back from Croatia in the last 10 mins. After Podolski rifled home another golazo, his 3rd of the tournament they couldnt get their hands on the shifty Croatians. Ballack and Frings were dreadful as they would have to admit the Croatians were better in the midfield. They have a few men who are tough to get a hold of, Srna, Cranjar, Rakitic, and Luka Modric is a nice little player himself. He reminds me a lot of Rosicky the way he twists and turns through defenders. They are also both of similar smaller stature. I look forward to seeing him at Spurs, maybe he will be the final piece they need to push them over the hump and get into the upper half of the table in the premeirship.

Portugal won't be too happy to face Germany, but I think they are getting the second best team from the group. Let's not forget that in any other group, Germany's tournament would likely be over, but they have that nice little cushion and margin for error with their draw. Croatia might have even surprised themselves a little with that victory, beacause from their reaction, they didn't appear as if they expected to win. Sure their coach is a little over jubilant in his celebrations, but they were always going to be a love em or hate em kind of team. Germany will be doing some soul searching and who knows what troulbe Austria might give them, especially if they are playing for pride.

I'm watching the first half of Poland Austria as I write this, I kind of want to put on an Austria shirt and tap one home for the guys. How many chances do these Austrians want, and free beer for life?!? geez...