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Match Day 24 > Saturday 8Jul06

THIRD-PLACE MATCH

Match 63: GERMANY v. PORTUGAL

Booking: Beifall! DANKA Deutschland!

GER would have gotten a Clap! (Beifall) regardless of what happened today for putting on such a terrific month-long party for everyone around the world .. .. One might have figured that both sides would have just shown up and gone through the motions .. .. But, not GER .. ..

Fans streamed off trains at Ze Bahnhoff Stuttgart all day, were begging for tickets and paying ridiculous prices for one last chance to hail Klinsi and the boys .. .. The Stuttgart FanFest was packed with almost 1 MILLION FANS as though there was more than a bronze medal at stake .. ..

If any GER fans are disappointed, the fact remains that only TWO COUNTRIES will get to play the maximum 7 matches, receive hardware and leave the podium as a winner and FULL MARKS TO DEUTSCHLAND for achieving that!!

Nice touch by Klinsi in perhaps his last match for GER > He cleared his bench and ended the Tournament by playing all of his field players during the month and the only player who did not appear was the third GK .. ..

1^st Half >> GER came forward and tried to get a hold of the game early and weren’t afraid to give the pill away with risky passes .. .. GER streamed into the POR area but couldn’t get anything past RICARDO .. .. POR couldn’t string anything together early as they tried to absorb GER pressure and didn’t get their first shot until 14:30 when PAULETA left-footed wide .. .. The rest of the half bogged down into a physical contest as GER definitely was trying to get POR spinning and wound up .. ..

2^nd Half >> Thank goodness the second half was as brilliant as it was .. .. SCHWEINSTEIGER, who grabbed my MoM in their opening match, also gets it in their finale as he was responsible for all of GER’s three goals with hard-hit knucklers .. .. And, even though they have rowed of late, SCOLARI made sure that FIGO was his last sub in his final WC match and rewarded with a perfect cross from the right to a diving GOMES for his goal .. ..

GER MoM: #7 BASTIAN SCHWEINSTEIGER turned around what has become a disappointing WC with what could have been credited with a HAT-TRICK! Opened the match with a lazy left > center cut-back and unleashed a hard right-foot knuckler that altered course half way to goal and fooled RICARDO .. .. Wasn’t credited for the second score when he drove a hard, low FK into the box that found PETITs foot for an OG .. .. His ‘third’ goal was pure brilliance when he again launched another right-footed bomb. But hit it slightly inside-out and caused it to slice into the upper-right – WORLD CLASS!!

POR MoM: Nein