Gabriele Marcotti's daily diary: Frings ain't what they used to be

3. Turkey v Germany will be remembered more as an entertaining match than a quality match.  But you can only look with awe at the performance of Fatih Terim's men in such improbable circumstances.
Given the troops at his disposal, it does rather make you wonder just how great the gap is (or isn't) between great players and merely above average players. And why highly paid superstars can come so close to losing against guys who earn a fraction as much.

2. The loss of TV pictures for the match last night (apparently caused by electrical storms) was something of a throwback. For the first time in years, you actually need to read the match reports to find out how the game went. Quite a change.

1. After the game, I exchanged a few words with Torsten Frings, the Germany midfielder.  He said his team were undisciplined, but nevertheless persevered and won thanks to "individual excellence", people popping up at the right time. Wait, I thought Germany were supposed to be the paragons of discipline, wearing opponents down through their collective skills? The sooner we get rid of these idiotic stereotypes, the better. It's 2008, folks.

Comments

[Louis]

I was watching and Al Jazeera was fine all the way through the game.

[Joe]

@david:
At least anyone should be able to differentiate between "discipline" and "efficiency". - And by the way: Concerning the match in question: The stated "100%-efficiency" is just another mythos - and only adduces evidence to the old saying: You only are able to apprehend, what your preconception allows you to see.
(And certainly there have been some more attempts and shots - several alone by "Hirtzelsberger" e.g. - but most likely there is few chance in rocking those prejudices - and cut and dried opinions - by just referring to facts)

[dallia]

nope, al jazeera also lost the feed, so we had to settle for the guests; hoddle, venebles and presenter richard keys, to fill us in. i dont know where this talk of al jazeera not having lost its feed came from, both the arabic and english channels were blank for a bit

[Richard]

This guy always writes such rubbish. It was only the day he was having a go at English commentators for not pronouncing Capdevilla correctly. Have you ever heard a French commentator pronounce Gerrard, well its not correct either. Europeans make no effort pronounce English correctly but if we learn French, Italian etc half the emphasis is on the accent and how we say it!

[Ben Fegore]

To Robert:
The 'lucky' Germans breezed through the Qualifying Stage as the first team to qualify, with the most goals and the best goal difference, played three great games up to the semis knocking Portugal and scored some fantastic goals on the way, almost every game being thrilling to watch.

We also saw some great individual performances from Lahm, Podolski and Schweinsteiger and some great team spirit, tenacity and grit.

The reason Germany are in the final is because Klinsmann managed to built up a completely new Nationalelf by forcing the German FA to accept essential changes to their organisational structure which turned a tired old bunch of players into an attractive, positive side that was able to exceed expectations after just two years by beating Portugal to achieving third place in the 2006 World Cup.

These are reasons for reasons for Germany's success, and none of these have been built on national stereotypes, but on individuals who are passionate and persistent. These are characteristics of all successful teams, no matter which country they hail from.

I found it courageous and refreshing to read a blog that calls for an end of the well worn and outdated stereotyping which so often is the bread and butter of the pundits and bloggers who know that one tired stereotype will get them more attention than one well thought out piece of analysis ever will.

[Robert]

Al Jazeera was also said to have not lost the pictures. Can anyone confirm this?

[david]

Nonsense! I think the match reinforced the stereotype rather than debunk it. the Germans had three goal attempts and scored from all three. The Germans played badly and still won. Sounds like good old German efficiency to me!!! Some stereotypes are there simply because they are mostly true. Live with it!

[C. Cricket]

No - there was only a short loss of TV picture in Germany. Swiss TV was able to send its signals over the alps.

[Ian Thomson]

So it was worldwide! I was sceptical of the excuses being trotted out by the ESPN studio anchorman.

Listening to Derek Rae and Andy Gray providing play-by-play coverage of the punters in the "fan zone" was highly amusing. It's a pity Giles Smith wasn't party to such inane rambling.