With only one match remaining, I thought I would get in a little early and put forward my team of the tournament. This year’s tournament was fantastic with plenty high scoring games, not one for the defences. In fact, although I was very disappointed with them overall, I thought the Italians defended better than anyone [...]

At the start of the tournament I predicted that the trend, set in the previous World Cup, of top sides beginning to dominate international football again would continue. I believed that four of the ‘bigger’ nations at this year’s competition would be present in the semi finals. Instead we had not one but two dark [...]

Germany 3 Turkey 2
With only four minutes remaining in the match, Turkey looked to have come back from the dead yet again with an equaliser from Semih Senturk. Unfortunately for them though they didn’t manage to see the game into extra time. A Philip Lahm goal in the final minute of the match restored Germany’s [...]

Torsten Frings could play against Turkey tomorrow night despite not fully recovering from a bruised rib sustained in the final group match against Austria last week. After a good team performance in their previous match against Portugal, it would be brave of Löw to drop either Simon Rolfes or Thomas Hitzlsperger, who both performed well [...]

Germany take on Turkey tomorrow night in Basel and are now just one step away from the final of the European Championships. After a slow start, Germany coach Joachim Löw changed the team’s formation for the quarter final against Portugal, where they finally hit the form expected of them. However, one German native will hope [...]

(I understand that this post isn’t really about Germany but I wanted to include my views on this subject. I hope you enjoy what follows.)
This year we had the rare scenario where one team in each group were able to rest their entire first team, knowing that the result would have no bearing whatsoever on [...]

“Now, we are in the top four. We have eliminated the best team of the tournament,” Bastian Schweinsteiger, the man who scored one goal and created the other two, told the official Germany website. On the performances leading up to the semi final, Portugal were the best side in Germany’s half of the tournament and, [...]

Portugal 2 Germany 3
On Wednesday, Germany coach Joachim Löw remarked that his side would have to raise their game to another level if they were to see off the challenge of Portugal. Last night the Germans did raise their game, although they were helped along their way by Portugal’s inability to deal with simple set [...]

Portugal:
01. Ricardo
04. Bosingwa
15. Pepe
16. Ricardo Carvalho
02. Ferreira
08. Petit
20. Deco
10. João Moutinho
07. Ronaldo
21. Nuno Gomes
11. Simão
Germany:
01. Lehmann
03. Friedrich
17. Mertesacker
21. Metzelder
16. Lahm
04. Fritz
08. Frings / 18. Borowski
13. Balack
07. Sweinsteiger
11. Klose
20. Podolski / 09. Gómez
Referee: Peter Fröjdfeldt (SWE)
Venue: St. Jakob Park, Basel
Kick-off: 7.45pm (GMT)

Germany team manager Oliver Bierhoff told the Scotsman newspaper that in order to stop Portugal, his team need to neutralise the threat of Cristiano Ronaldo. “We have a special plan, but I cannot reveal anything”, said the former Germany striker, who scored the golden goal in the final of Euro 96.
That was the last [...]