Sunday, July 11, 2010

Goalfest for third place: Germany wins 3-2

July 10, 2010 - South Africa - Football - Uruguay v Germany FIFA World Cup Third/Fourth Place Play-Off - South Africa 2010 - Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth, South Africa - 10/7/10..Uruguay's Diego Forlan celebrates scoring the second goal.
So falls the rain, and we've received just what we needed, a goalfest. The battle for third was a truly entertaining game, and no matter what anyone else says, I'll happily state that so far, with only the final left, Uruguay - Germany was my favorite game of the World Cup. This goalfest for third probably indicatest that the final will have a goal in it, if we're lucky. Spain's possession based dominance with tiki taka passing, against Dirk Kuyt who will be running around the field in confusion will ultimately be a low scoring affair. But the final is later today, lets talk about this match for third place.

Uruguay - Germany

The two sides were evenly matched, Uruguay were direct and dangerous with Forlan, and Germany were led by one-touch passing between Ozil and Muller. Germany got the first with Schweinsteiger blasting a shot which Muslera couldn't contain, letting young Muller follow up for the lead early on in the 19th minute. But Uruguay took advantage of Germany's poor positioning to find an equalizer; Freidrich moved up to attack along with Khedira and Aogo, so when Scheinsteiger had the ball taken away from him, there were only two German defenders against Uruguay's three forwards. This let Cavani finish one on one against Butt for the equalizer.

In the second half, Uruguay took the lead with Forlan who was completely unmarked at the top of the box, the Atletico Madrid striker side volleyed the ball into the ground making it bounce into Butts net for a memorable goal. But it was inevitable that Germany would find the equalizer, and it was Jansen who found it, heading the ball past Muslera who had come out to punch the cross, but missed. Jansen scored, looked around in confusion, then at the linesman, and walked off unhappily with his first goal in a World Cup finals.

Germany found the winner in the 82nd, a goal-mouth scramble from a corner eventually finished with Sami Khedira looping a header over Muslera and into the back of the net, strangely, Khedira decided to celebrate with his teammates, unlike Jansen. But it couldn't just finish like this, in the final minute of injury time, Uruguay get a free kick right outside Germany's box, Forlan steps up ready to take what could be the last kick of the game. A curling free kick, destined for the top left corner, decides to break everyones hearts and thud off the crossbar, it's followed by the final whistle as the German players thank their stars that Forlan's effort wasn't a couple of centimeters lower.

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