Preview: Germany v Uruguay, 3rd Place Game.

July 9th, 2010 | by: chris |

584-klose-germany

BIG PICTURE

The big picture is the story of a few small pictures. The most prominent and historical is Miroslav Klose’s pursuit of the all-time goal scoring record, currently sitting one behind Ronaldo at 14, but maybe not sitting much at all with a back injury going into the game. On an individual level, it’s an enormous game for Klose and Germany – who will be feeding him Jabulanis ad nauseam should he play.

The other striker being watched is Diego Forlan, arguably one of the favorites for Golden Ball as player of the tournament despite on the losing end of the semifinal, and his propensity for shooting from absolutely anywhere on the pitch, including corners, which makes spectating fun.

And then there are the subplots: the return of hero/villain Luis Suarez + hands; the potential Golden Ball runs of both Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mesut Ozil; the chance to see just how much of a difference Thomas Mueller makes in this side; and one last chance to see this phase of an evolving Germany, who will be one of the co-favorites for Polkraine 2012 and perhaps Brazil 2014.

WHAT’S AT STAKE

Pride and final standing, but those are relatively minimal to the outside observer. A losing semifinalist is a losing semifinalist, whether they win the consolation game or not. A win will help, but ultimately it does not change history.

So the rest is for individual glory.

OUR PREDICTION

We won’t see Uruguay recreating their tactics against France or Germany continually being pressed back into their own third a la Spain, which means this one should be enjoyable with a decent number of goals. So….3-2 Germany. Because Paul picked them too.

And Klose gets one.

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Germany
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Marcus

Oh, I missed that Paul picked Germany. Since he messed up the semi I try to ignore him. I'm a bit surprised about Paul's prognosis as half of the German team (including Jogi) seems to have caught the African summer flu, i.e. post-semi blues.
netsez

The secret of the octopus has been discovered! I read this in a comment on a Guardian blog

“Apparently, according to a Cambridge professor I heard on Radio 4 earlier, Paul always goes for the box closest to his house in the tank. This would seem a more reasonable explanation: the octopus is actually very lazy, while the person putting the flags onto the boxes into the tank is the real psychic.”

Can anyone confirm this? I'm too lazy to check all Phil's videos.
http://www.mcalcio.com Marco P.

None of the 3rd-place finals of the last three world cups have finished with either team getting a clean sheet. I like chris's 3-2 prediction, I'm going for 3-1 myself.
oskardevarsovie

I always suspected that.
netsez

Paul picked Spain in the Semi, he has been perfect so far.
Marcus

As an English-born German octopus this traitor of an cephalopod mollusk clearly messed that up even because he made the right pick.
AzzurriFan

wow! such a precise prediction :)
Bense235

And it's Winter in South Africa. I can hardly tell on how many levels this post is wrong.