Germany v Poland

I can't believe this was the same Polish team that got spanked by Ecuador on Friday. This was a high paced, physical game, that could have easily tipped either way. A lot of the game consisted of Poland hanging on against a German onslaught, especially in the last 15 minutes when they were down a man. 0-0 really would have been a fair result, some result to mark the performance the Poles put on in front of a 50-50 crowd. The Polish crowd was pretty impressive, and the Germans knew it would be because they put the game on the opposite end of the country. This was a huge showdown, and accordingly 142 hooligans were arrested in Dortmund before the game.

Tactically, the Polish back line that was so slow and got beaten badly trying to play a high line against Ecuador really did a lot better. Germany obviously didn't have the speed to punish them, and they didn't play so far up. Some stupidity by German players helped, as in the case of Oliver Neuville, who came in as sub but kept hanging around waiting for service while the defenders moved upfield and left him offside. The stupidest offside violation was not his fault though. That came on what looked like the decisive sequence in the closing minutes of the game.

In the 90th minute, Miroslav Klose and Michael Ballack both broke free in the six-yard box for a dangerous cross, but Klose's header went off the crossbar. The rebound fell right to Ballack, who fell down volleying it off the crossbar, with the rebound going back out to the penalty spot where Neuville tried a shot that got blocked by a Polish defender so the ball squirts out to their right into space. Here's the thing, after Ballack's volley, Klose backs up out of the area since he's offside, but Ballack falls down and sits there for a second looking grumpy. When the ball squirts out, Ballack gets up, and goes back away from the goal to play it, passing it out to David Odonkor who puts it in the back of the net. But Ballack was clearly offside, made no attempt to get onside or get off the field, and played the ball from an offside position, so no goal. Between him and Neuville I was starting to wonder if they even knew about the rule. At that point, a draw looked like justice for the way the Poles were desperately hanging on with 10 men. The deciding goal came in the next minute, when David Odonkor finally got a ball served to him over the top of the Polish defense, and crossed it to Neuville for the winner, so they finally broke them down after 91 minutes.

There was a lot of disciplinary action in this game, and appropriately so. The big one would be Radoslav Sobolewski getting a second yellow in the 75th minute, which was for a stupid foul, and he'd been asking for it ever since he got his first yellow. I have no sympathy for Michael Ballack whining about his yellow card, because it was typical of the entire game, whenever Poland had an opportunity to counter, a German player would foul from behind to slow down the counterattack. They also would mob the referee to interfere with the restart, giving them more time to get back and organize their defense. Good tactic for a slow German team against an eastern European counterattacking team, but not much fun to watch, and definitely not very sportsmanlike.

I was amused and impressed by Polish keeper Artur Boruc, who kept making plays on the edge of the box that were a half step away from handballs. Borucs made a lot of plays with his hands out there where he'd grab the ball, but drop it as his momentum carried him over the line and then kick it. His diving scoop at the edge of the box to roll the ball out of bounds was another memorable clearance. His yellow card for repeated time-wasting was well-deserved, but I can't really blame him for burning time off the clock when Poland really ended up 30 seconds from a draw.

Also, I'd like to take a moment to point out that Oliver Neuville is German, so his name is pronounced NOY-vill, like Deutsch and schadenfreude.

Germany 1-0 Poland
'91 Neuville