GO GERMANY! That was a great game for Germany. They played well, pushed hard, had many more chances than England. I'm sorry to see England out so early and I would have cheered hard for them going further in the tournament, but they just didn't play at the same level today.

Bring on Argentina or Mexico. 

Hol' den Titel nach Hause!

I`m not a fan, but it was a great birthday present for me today :)))

Happy Birthday to You!!!!

Happy Birthday to You!!!!

Happy Birthday to You!!!!

Happy Birthday to You!!!!

Thank you! :)

i accept consolatin alkf 145  s kill you all

$$@#%#$%$#%V *(&^%$#

alllovvvuuuu

hey zonker i think u better write another letter 2 Blatter...this time send it by COURRIER A not B...  

I like what Zoner wrote... :-P

@Tony I'm way ahead of you. I've already started drafting my next letter.

There have been too many bad calls this World Cup. There have been at least 5 terrible calls during the group stage and the first two days of the knock-out stage.

Something must be done.

delighted for germany.

bad call obviously re the goal that wasn't allowed but the best team won. özil, muller, schweinsteiger and podolski. what brilliant young players!!! germany were vibrant and positive. congratulations to all german glocallers! 

@ Zonker writing a letter should be done..but i propose we go penetrating into Bladder's office...we may need hayes to get past security....ive heard there some fine lookin german women running the show over there so... Zonker im convinced that one way or the other we have 2 get down 2 the buttom of this

this is a team work

Well I thought England defended quite poorly as some of the German goals were quite soft.  But the real talking point of the game must be the goal that never was.  It's a disgrace for FIFA and Sepp Blatter..  He is too old to accept that technology can help..  Get rid of him and let's bring in some technology to help the game..  Anyway I hope the Argies go all the way...

What a present, winning by stealing a goal! 

how can you say the best team won?  Psychologically when you know you you scored but it wasn't allowed do you think the English bothered to play after half time.  it wasn't "fair play".   (it's not cricket).  Plus the Germans had the advantage of being familiar with the new ball, and half their team weren't really German!  Mind you, we were warned about bribing offocials before the tournament - does anybody think we might have seen the result of this on Sunday? 

winning by cheating....you must be proud!

how can you say the best team won?

i agree entirely. how on earth could they say that?!? the correct statement would have been: the better team won.  

winning by cheating....you must be proud!

who cheated?

a non German team, a disallowed goal, were bribes paid....?

I think the whole world knows who cheated...if the German team had any balls they would have told the officials at half time to allow the goal.  But maybe the German men are just softies......no courage, no honor!  Even now I'm kinda surprised the Germans aren't insisting on a replay. After all winning like that isn't really winning. 

@Hayes: agree, the better team won, we will see on saturday against Argentina how good Germany really is!

@tax_exile: winning by cheating? It was the referee who made a BIG mistake!

@Anna: I can see that you crew up with balls and you know exactly how the game goes ... thanks for your qualified soccer knowledge, I am sure you saw the game, otherwise you would never answer just to write something I guess

sorry for my bad english ... guess because i am german ... i mean grew up not crew up

Nice German car

Anna  darling, its all about plastic substance! and yes the germans dont have any plastic but unfortunately a lot of substance

Love, Tony

people please stop moaning about germany! they didn't cheat. they gave us all, not just england, a masterclass in the beautiful game.

i totally agree with you if you believe that the goal should have been given - it was clearly across the line. but you should direct your venom at the old and corrupt sepp blatter - it is his fault that there are no double checks available in the game to avoid such mistakes. platini had put forward an idea before the world cup that there should be two more linesmen at the goal line to avoid exactly this situation but blatter ignored him because he sees him as a threat to his position. it's sad and pathetic. but don't let all that fifa corruption and politicking corrupt your enjoyment of what was a movingly spirited game of football. as a neutral i was happy to see the better team (by a huge margin) win the game.

@tax_exile > "do you think the English bothered to play after half time"

This is exactly the point. If England were the better team, they would have fought through and applied pressure to get the equalizer. If a team of 11 professional football players crumble because of one bad call (no matter how egregious), then no, they don't deserve to win.

But, I mean for christ's sake people, let's not forget England 1966, Argentina in 1986, and France v Ireland, the USA goal vs. Slovenia that was also disallowed. The system is flawed. It needs to be fixed. It's easy direct one's ire at Germany, but it's not their fault.

And @Anna, "if the Germans had any balls, they would have told the officials at half time to allow the goal" First, who knows if they did or not. Second, THE RULES DO NOT ALLOW IT! Once the decision is made, there is no provision to change it. See the game of Argentina v Mexico for another example. The referees saw on the big screen the mistake they had made but as all the commentators said, it was not possible to change the decision. It's the official FIFA rules of the game.

I find Maradonna's f*cking "Hand of God" and Thierry Henry's double-hand ball far more egregious, because they actively did something to achieve a result. The German goal got beaten by Lampard's shot and wasn't even facing the right direction when the ball hit the ground. He recovered, didn't hear a whistle, so he grabbed the ball and continued. He didn't purposefully break the rules of the game.

Unlike Maradonna and Henry.

If we were to investigate the history of the World Cup and analyse all the previous games, including audio pickups (what did the Italian asshole say to Zidane? Was that also worthy of a red card?), I'm sure the list of champions would be much different. England would never have won. Argentina wouldn't have won. Italy would still be looking for their first championship (Italian footballers are a bunch of pansies who fall at the slightest touch.)

So, yeah, England was unlucky on that goal. But, to get back to the first point, if they were the better team, or even *a* better team, they would have fought that much *harder* to equalize, not crumble and whine and give up. I mean, they were *only* down by a single goal at half time. How many times do you see a team losing by a goal at half time and they come out like gangbusters to start the second half and they equalize within 5 minutes. What's that you say? Not the English. Ah, well. Too bad, then.

And the officials would have told them where to go. The only way a refereeing decision gets reversed is a case of mistaken identity, i.e. the wrong player got booked or assigned a goal. Them's the rules :)

.... and its not like the English team played a great tournament... they didnt really look like an all conquering team in an of their matches .. they just didnt have it... lets just accept it and move on .. may the best team win the whole thing .. which is ...........

Argentina..maybe Brazil..maybe holland, maybe spain maybe portugal,,maybe paraguay...maybe germany..maybe ghana but not.... 

If anybody wants to read an analysis of post-cup English football, the Irish Times (perhaps it's a perspective, wood/trees kinda thing) has done quite a good job with this piece. 

Japan ??

I don't think so, they are can take the next flight back ... like

Excellent article!

Goal line technology for future World Cups? Four years... grumble grumble... too late. Grumble.

what a loud of s.... i must read here!!!! how about the english team? how many of those guys are english??????

David James; Glen Johnson; Ashley Cole; Aaron Lennon; Shaun Wright-Phillips; Jermain Defoe; Ledley King; Emile Heskey; to name a few!

there are just a handfull of teams which do not have "foreigners" in theis rows. complaining about germans and driving a german car??? not very stylish.

anyhow, i just want to make it clear, i'm not a german supporter. but who plays better deserves to pass the game.....

what a loud of s.... i must read here!!!! how about the english team? how many of those guys are english??????

Dude, seriously, I don't think much of your statistics site -- there isn't any information on there about nationality. I have to ask, how are you using that information to infer that these people aren't English? The photograph? 

same as the other dude most probably. or how does he knows that those guys from the german team are not german?

hayes....how would the photograph give it away?

Massi : You have to admit that the German team has a few Turkish/Polish sounding descendants in it... and who is that fellow "pigclimber" anyway

charly: i agree that those names definitely would not have passed adolf's requirements. however, those guys are born in germany. in the case of england, i assume that the british gave their or just english names to the locals. my point is, that if we look at all european national teams 50 years ago, the names and looks was different than these days. nothing agains other races! just wanted to state my point against "tax_exile". I think anyone who looks from this point of view must agree with me.

i have to specifiy, ......."gave their or just english names to the locals" during the colonial times.