It is now time to switch to a new Money AM football blog as the world cup is now over and we all look to the future.....World cup 2010 is over, Bravo Espana, and Forlan, once again and bring on the new season !.....I never expected the last thread to be such a success...thanks all.... so this new one might go on for years without the need to edit the title...we shall see...

Rubbish Germans! All those goals and not one player scored a hat trick!

Actually, I'm still not sure whether it was the Germans who were brilliant in their attack, which was quite relentless, or the Brazilians who were rubbish, particularly in defence. It was somewhat 'stand still' time after time.

The Brazilian goalkeeper hadn't let a goal in until this match but obviously the Germans 'came to bury Cesar not to praise him'. (Did I just say that?) They just walked around Brazil's defence and popped the goal into the net seven times.

Now there is 'luck under a seven'. Anyone going to put £7k on the Germans to win the World Cup? Well not me - nor £7 either.

I think Robben is the best player of the series and I reckon he will be taking home the World Cup. And the Holland team can score goals too. They beat Spain 5-1

Argentina have got Messi. Holland have got Robben.

Watch this space!

I fancied Germany to win from the start, and have seen nothing yet to change that opinion.

I agree with Stan (blimey, did I really just say that?). Jogi Löw has worked wonders as Germany have sneaked up on the outside as unfancied under-dogs.

José Mourinho is also a genius. Getting £50m for the lanky muppet with the dodgy barnet was pure masterclass. I just hope PSG don't want their money back now.

May be it was only a "bad hair day" Germany for me all the way.

I am not all that keen on football but.....

If that had been a horse race, there would have been a stewards enquiry.

A few people must have made a killing at the bookies
Anybody know what the odds were for Brazil conceding seven goals ?

Oh dear! I read Van Persie is a bit poorly. Let's hope it was just 24 hr "man flu" and he recovers in time for tonight.

Did Brazil get beat ?

Trounced!

What score

There are many pictures of distraught Brazilian fans around the Internet today.
I thought this one worthy of a Copy and Paste to put it up here.
It looks like the poor guy has well done with biting his nails and so he then started on his shirt:

7-1

Holland V Argentine tonight.

Come on the Dutch Masters Ive forgiven you for the goalie cheating in the last match.

BRING ON THE DUTCH.

7-1 !!!!!!!! i thought Brazil were the kiddies at this game ... Did the Germans cheat ? i did see that dirty bar steward dive early on in the tournament ,i think he was German ..

The Germans didn't need to cheat, they just systematically destroyed a very poor Brazilian side and thank goodness Hansen is going to retire from the BBC, I'm fed up hearing him droning on about bad defending !

You just leave Hanson alone DB, because after some of his World Cup performances in Spain in 82' or 83' for Scotland.. he is very well qualified to comment on bad defending -):

Hansen talks wet anyway as does the rest of the BBC Match Of The Day panel.

They talk of British World Class Players.........tell me .......what planet are they living on??????????.

And if this last World Cup hasnt shown them how badly they have judged our players they should all resign on block.

Come on the Argies!!!!!!!

Taken from: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e5b7e294-077b-11e4-81c6-00144feab7de.html#ixzz36zfdsx3i

July 9, 2014 5:57 pm
Eight lessons rock-bottom Brazil need to learn from the best
www.FT.com
By Simon Kuper in São Paulo

Ten years ago this week, the German team was at rock bottom. It had exited Euro 2004 without beating anyone, not even Latvia. Germany’s sorry side served chiefly as raw material for German comedians. Nobody even seemed willing to become national coach. That week I asked Jürgen Klinsmann what was wrong with Germany. “We don’t have a killer up front,” he smiled. “We are still making the mistake of passing sideways. The lack of speed may be another reason.” I asked if he might become coach of Germany. “No!”

Three weeks later, Klinsmann became coach of Germany. He and his assistant Joachim Löw ditched tradition and revolutionised the way Germans play football. Just before this World Cup, Klinsmann, now coaching the US, eulogised the new German team to the magazine Elf Freunde: “These high-speed players with their technique, who can play furious attacking football with fast positional changes. Everything that we scribbled in theory on flipcharts in 2004 has become reality.” Tuesday’s 7-1 hammering of Brazil in the semifinal possibly even qualifies as hyperreality.

Now a Brazil at rock bottom needs to revolutionise the way it plays football. Here are eight lessons from Germany:

1. Never let a crisis go to waste. You will never have greater consensus to rethink everything in your football than now. In German parlance, this is “zero hour”.
2. Your past is irrelevant. Brazil’s five world titles mean nothing today. They serve only to kid you that you are still good at football. Your aim must be to play like Germany 2018, not Brazil 1970.
3. Don’t blame individuals. Brazilian fans on Tuesday night were jeering poor, hapless Fred, but it is not his fault that he was arguably the country’s best striker. The system has failed. Fred is only a symptom.
4. The most important thing in football is the pass. It is not the dribble, or passion, or psychology. The Germans obsess about the geometry of passing. Brazil, by contrast, no longer thinks seriously about tactics, which is why coach Felipe Scolari and the Brazilian media spent half the tournament obsessing about the players’ penchant for tears.
5. Learn from the best countries. Accept that you no longer understand how to play football. The Germans from 2004 learned passing from the Dutch and Spaniards, pace of play from the English Premier League, minority recruitment from the French and fitness from Americans.
6. The corollary: you probably need a foreign coach. Klinsmann was a German but a longtime expatriate who had ended up in California. Brazil should have asked the Spaniard Pep Guardiola to coach them in the World Cup, as Ronaldo suggested. Hire a European now.
7. Set the bar at number one. For Germany or Brazil, the only aim is to be the world’s best. At Euro 2008, a young German team reached the final, where they were passed off the park by Spain. Germany’s coach Löw did not congratulate himself on finishing second. Instead he thought: “I want a team like that,” and began working out how to become like Spain.
8. You will not immediately become good but you can almost immediately become professional. Germany leads football in nutrition, statistics, physical preparation and so on. Brazil must aim to match that.

Brazil has a harder route to reform than Germany did. The German football federation, with 6.85m members, is the largest single-sport association on earth. Brazil has no comparable central power to push change at all levels. Brazil does have a lone genius, Neymar, who sometimes serves to disguise Brazilian football’s malaise. (Lionel Messi has the same retarding effect on Argentina.) And geographically, Brazil is poorly connected to cutting-edge football countries.

All this impedes learning. But there can be no excuse for turning up in Russia in 2018 (presuming Brazil qualify) with talk of 1970 and jogo bonito. That’s dead.

The new Brazil flag:



Neymar points at a can of .....?



Christ the Redeemer is shocked and stunned:

The Brazilians should have thought that they were Dutch and they would have won.

In my dreams anyway.

Expecting a Dutch win tonight but it will be tough.