Friday, July 11, 2014

World Cup - ARG vs NED

I'm not sure what to say about this game.  As offensive as the Germany vs Brazil game was for the Germans, this game was more like a game of cat and mouse.  Which is why it went to penalty kicks.  While the game didn't produce any goals through the duration of regular time and the overtime periods, it was probably a better played game than the other semifinal.  It wasn't as memorable though.

Due to it happening on a gymnastics night, I caught much of the game streaming live from my computer.  As I realized that it was going into overtime, I decided that I needed to start towards the gym.  So I finished what I was doing and headed out.  When I got to the car none of the local sports stations were carrying the game, so I turned on the ESPNWatch app, put in one of my headphones, and listened to it while I drove.  When I was about 10 minutes from the gym, the game had just gone into penalties and I decided that listening to PKs was ridiculous.  So I pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned country club and watched the PKs from my phone.  Watched the final kick and then was right back on the road to the gym.  Amazing what technology has done for the ability to watch games now.

So the final is set.  Germany vs Argentina.  The team that has scored 17 goals this tournament (4 against Portugal, the #4 ranked team coming into the tournament, and 7 against Brazil, the #3 ranked team coming into the tournament) and survived the "group of death" versus the team that has scored 9 goals and survived a group with an average ranking of 36.  Knockout round competition has been a little bit closer for the two teams, but I have to think that the hard path taken by the German squad has better prepared them.  Nobody expected a 6 goal drubbing of Brazil by Germany or that Spain (the #1 ranked team coming in) and Portugal wouldn't make it out of the group stage.  I guess that's why they play the games.

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