Casa de Colin

Germany 1 (Michael Ballack 21)
Czech Republic 2 (Marek Heinz 30, Milan Baros 77)

1-0: Bastian Schweinsteiger deflects a cross in the direction of Ballack, and he pounds the ball into the top-right corner for Germany’s second goal of the tournament.
1-1: Heinz does his best David Beckham impersonation, hitting a sensational free kick from outside the box that eludes the German wall and a diving Oliver Kahn.
1-2: Heinz springs loose Baros with a pass, but his shot is saved by Kahn… regardless, Baros picks up his own rebound and flicks the ball into the empty net.

Thoughts: Well, you can look at this match two ways. If you’re a Czech fan, then you have to feel VERY good about your team’s chances now. This was basically the B side against Germany, and they came away with a tremendous win that makes them the only team to go a perfect 3-0-0 in the group stage - one including Germany and Holland, no doubt. This is a deep team filled with talent, and one would think they’d have no problems against Denmark in the QF’s.

If you’re a German fan… You have nothing to be happy about. Like I said, this was the Czech B team facing Germany, and they could not get the job done. Germany’s problem in Euro 2004 was that they couldn’t get the ball into the net. They have a lot of talented attackers, but when it comes to putting the ball past the keeper… they weren’t doing the job. One would hope that Euro 2004 serves as a transition period, because if Germany turned in this kind of performance at the 2006 World Cup, which they’re hosting…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2004 @ 11:34 pm on the category Sport, Euro 2004. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.