Vier zu eins

So far, I haven't even mentioned the soccer World Cup that Germany is hosting this summer, so I figured it's about time since everybody loves soccer. And that includes you. What, you don't love soccer? Well, you're wrong. Trust me on this one, you do love soccer. Stop denying it. You can lie to me, but you can't lie to yourself.

Anyway, a few weeks ago Germany lost a preparation game against Italy with 1:4, and people were starting to question Jürgen Klinsmann. Last night, we beat the USA 4:1, which is nothing to get overly excited about, but psychologically it certainly is an important victory. In the first half, the US defense was pretty tight, but at the beginning of the second, Germany scored early, and later on sealed the deal with 3 goals in quick succession. Now, the US team is still in preparation for their regular season as I understand, and was missing 6 players of its regular formation. So with somewhat of a B-Team and not in top physical condition, winning against them is not a good indicator for how well Germany is prepared for the World Cup. On top of that, the US team is certainly not a top competitor for the title, but neither is Germany, as much as people over here like to think so.

Still there's hope for our team. In the last World Cup, Christoph Metzelder proved to be an outstanding defender, but as fate would have it, he was injured pretty badly shortly thereafter and couldn't play again until like 2 years later. Of course it took him some time to get back into the game, but if last night's game is any indificitationarium, we can expect some great things from him. Not that he was perfect, but he was pretty dang good in my eyes. I just like good defensive players, my all-time favorite being Guido Buchwald. And just for the record, my favorite team is VFB Stuttgart, so quit writing e-mails and letters and postcards asking me about it. You know who you are. I have better things to do with my precious time. Also, Eddie Johnson is fast.