itsbeautifuloutside

Germany v Portugal

Salvador, 16th June 2014

Match Report

Firstly can I say, I love the Portuguese Kit, my favourite so far in this competition

Portugal started brightly enough, two fine saves by the great German keeper Neuler from shots from Almeida and Ronaldo, the Germans seemed content to sit back and soak up the Portuguese attack, this game looked all set for an intriguing match, then after about 10 mins the Portuguese must of decided to press the self destruct button.

First goalkeeper Patricio played a weak clearance straight to Khedira, who although 35 yards out had an open goal to shoot at and really should have scored. Three minutes later Pereira made a rash challenge on advancing Mario Gotze, yes he went down easy, but this is the World Cup, the penalty will be given, Muller put the Penalty away with the usual German efficiency, Germany 1-0

Inspired by the goal the Germans with the outstanding Kroos and Ozil started dominating the game and the pair of them set up a great chance for Gotze to shoot, the keeper made a great save deflecting for a corner, from the resulting corner comes the second German goal it certainly was a fine header from Hummels,,but despite having 9 defenders in the area not one Portuguese player actually made a proper challenge, 2-0

You could see the disappointment and frustration growing amongst the Portuguese, sloppy passing, wayward shots and general losing of possession, their heads were down.

Portugal needed a leader to gain control of the side, maybe Pepe the experienced Real Madrid Centre back could be the man, unfortunately not, whilst being challenged by Muller he stuck an arm out and made contact with the Germans face, Muller went down holding his face, he made a meal of the situation, but Pepe stupidly reacted and went down to head butt the German, once again only slight contact. But he made the refs decision easy and was rightly sent off.

Portugal now had no chance of coming back and this was further confirmed when muller scored his second and Germany's third goal right on half time 3-0

Second half starts, Germany knowing the game is won and are content to stroke the ball around and conserve energy.

Ronaldo was at the centre of everything for Portugal, but even he was reduced to wild speculative shots.

After 78 minutes no surprise when the Germans added a 4th the Portuguese keeper keeper pushes a cross ball out to the feet of mueller who has the easy task of putting the ball away for his hat trick, 4-0 Final Score.

Man of the match for me - Kroos who virtually ran the show

The stats will say that Germany had 9 shots to Portugal's 7 but the game was much more one sided than that.

Portugal's poor showing will have given Ghana and USA more incentive in their game later this evening.

Germany looked impressive, so efficient, I'll go as far as saying the best side I have seen in this tournament.

sotonian