Saturday, July 01, 2006

Argentina heads one home first, but still heads home

Germany won 1:1 a.e.t (1:1, 0:0) 4:2 PSO over Argentina. Argentina scored on a header off Ayala at the 49'', but Klose (goal number 5) headed one home after an assist-header later in the game, 80", to equalize (they definitely used their heads). Lehmann allowed two penalty shots at PSO to give Nationalmannschaft their third consecutive semifinals in World Cup. While Juergen said that they were not practicing penalty kicks, their PSO kicks saved them in the end. A moving scene (again this is me) was Oliver, with one arm around JensL (it was not a wrestling head-lock), encouraging Jens before the PSO -- Oliver had been in this situation before. Lehmann delivered. Klinsmann justified? If only for this one, an emphatic ... MAYBE.

Italy were not fazed by the football scandal at home, it seems, and booked their own semifinal place when they won convincingly (4:2) over Ukraine.

This is what Sheva said prior to the match: "Italia favorita, ma noi non abbiamo niente da perdere..."

L’ex attaccante del Milan Andriy Shevchenko conosce bene il nostro campionato e teme la nostra nazionale prossima avversaria ai quarti: “Conosco bene l’Italia, faranno di tutto per vincere – poi ha aggiunto - Non sarà un incontro facile per l’Ucraina. L’Italia è ricca di talenti e molti sono stati miei compagni al Milan. Lì ho speso sette anni bellissimi, ma ora è un’altra storia e dobbiamo concentrarci sull’incontro più importante della nostra storia”.

L’attaccante ucraino non crede che l’Italia possa essere distratta dal caso di “calciopoli”: “I problemi li potranno influenzare prima e dopo la partita, ma durante i 90’ penseranno solo al campo”.

Sheva was correct.

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