Team Germany

As the title suggests, this entry's gonna be made with a slant and I am of course, referring to their prospective victory over Italy in the semis. Although my judgement isnt entirely objective and in small part, emotion fuelled, I am still reasonably confidendt that the Germans would emerge victorious for several reasons. The first justification of my bold stand stems from the comfort in the knowledge that Team Germany, unlike the one under Sven's helm, has always been and currently operates under an intricately designed system which encourages efficient and effective play. Though the players may shoot themselves in the foot by straying from it at times, a good system is still imperative to producing/preventing goals and also hopefully generates wins because players feel secure with direction and not aimless play. My judgement on this issue secondly, is drawn from the conclusion through various matches over the years(partially valid now) that Germany has the gall to abandon their numbers in defence for a concentrated attack when the chips are down. If you notice, when the scoreline tilts unfavourably against the Germans, the coach usually commits 3-4 strikers upfront through substitutions and also provides the call for many a relentless attack. Of course, though not completely effective, this tactic often produces a good result. I'm particularly in favour of this because I find it extremely exciting to witness the germans blitz their opponents when activatimg 'Nazi mode.' Like how they gased the Argentines with a Klose sucker punch haha ironic! as well as later shooting them down n out in penalty kicks. Thirdly, though ballack has commonly been the main contributor to Germany's gameplay and instrumental to goals, the remainder of the squad, despite inexperience and lack of talent as compared to other footballing nations, manages to operate at their optimum, which has been paramount to their series of victories and most evidently their success(finalists) in the previous world cup that not many saw coming. Just take Klose for example, who was relatively unknown before 2002 and grossly underrated right now, was 4 years ago 2nd top and this tournametn insofar, the highest scorer. Although I have other reasons such as motivation from home crowd which further reinforce my stand, I shall right now just conclude with the final and most important reason as the match is just around the corner; the Germans are plain hardcore. Yup, the combination of brains(overall tactical n individual intelligence) as well as brawn(Justin and I agree that they're among the most aggressive worldwide) inevitably engineers positive results which unfortunately spells big trouble for their opponents. In making this entry, I'm not undermining the qualities, in every respect, of their upcoming opponent-Italy, but instead am underlining the considerations I find suffice my immense(whoa! it just skyrocketed! read 2nd sentence) confidence in the 3rd team haha I'm supporting this world cup.. to go for the jugular, if not, stem the tide and extricate themselves if need be.
-Kenneth Wong