Germany and Ecuador on next round
By Camilla Mancini
Ecuador vs. Germany
“After the game the king and the pawn go into the same box” – Italian Proverb.
One of the king teams of the tournament and one, which many people though was going to be just a pawn in the World Cup, made real the Italian proverb last Tuesday 20th at the Olympiastdium.
Germany fought to keep its position at the top of Group A, and did it in a notable way. During the first half of the game Miroslav Klose had already put in speed the scoreboard, giving two goals to the host team. The first goal came in less than 5 minutes, the second with a pass from the captain Michael Ballack, on the 44th minute.
In the second half of the match, Lukas Podolski got his first goal in the tournament. The effort made by Klose also posted him for the moment as the top scorer of the World Cup 2006 with 4 goals in 3 games, followed by the Spanish Fernando Torres with 2 goals.
Ecuador one of the surprises of the competition, despite its lost 3-0 to the Germans, it was already in Round of 8.
Ecuador’s next match will be against England, at Stuttgart on Sunday the 25th. Meanwhile, the Klinsmann’s team goes against Sweden on the 24th, at Leipzig.
Poland vs. Costa Rica
“An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep” -Arab Proverb.
On the other side of the coin, were the Poles and the ‘Ticos’, they knew before their game, they were going back home. That didn’t help much the Costa Ricans, who played in an average way, certainly not enough for a World Cup.
Even the Costa Rican team captain accepted it by stating “What we have is enough to classify to a World Cup, but not to go beyond that”. On their first game against Germany they didn’t show a bad game, but after the Ecuadorians hammered them, 3-0, it seems they just gave up and stop fighting for a bit more.
Additionally, Costa Rica’s fans keep saying is that wrong choices were taken by the coach Alexandre Guimaraes and insist that he was the sheep kind of leader.
Poles apparently saw the mistakes of the Central Americans, and fought for the 3 points that at the end put them on the third position of the Group A.
What happened?
The first goal came at the 24’ minute from the ‘Tico’, Ronald Goméz. At that point everybody started to make themselves ideas about the match and how Costa Rica might impress the Europeans. But, in less then 10 minutes the score was equaled by Boscki’s first goal in the tournament.
The score was 1-1 when the first half ended. Second half came and the game started to get a bit harder for the Ticos who started to get confidence, of the tied score. Then at the 66 minute of the match, from the corner appeared Bosacki who raised high on the edge of the six-yard box and got the final score (2-1).
