Brazil vs Germany

Both teams to score.
Germany win in 90 mins.
6/1.

Misery guts Hansen is one of the 'experts' again. I thought we'd seen the last of that droning pillock! No such luck. I suppose we have to have the compulsory Scotsman; why no Welsh or Irish just to balance it completely?

Bloody hell - just got another one before I could get out of the chair!

Tony
When you said 6/1, I thought you meant the odds not the score!!!!!

Lawro's World Cup predictions:

Brazil 1 Germany 0

These 'experts' ......

(I did think Germany would win. But not by this score. They've 'mullered' Brazil.)

Pep Guardiola to Bayern may have been more than just about Bayern...

Smart these Germans are...

A lesson for Brazil and an even bigger one for the watching English, because that’s who Brazil played like tonight. Kick it long and give it back to the opposition might be okay against lesser teams, but when you’re playing against the best, you have got to keep the ball.

Totally agree, Tony. Thanks to coaches like Pereira, Dunga and Scolari they've choked the natural talent out of the Brazilian players trying to make them play a European style which is against their nature. They need to go back to basics and let their players express themselves.

As for England, well I could go on for hours about the deficiencies in our game.

Germany played well, but Brazil were inept, their defence was pathetic, none existent.

Luiz, what can you say.

Massive performance by the Germans, overlooked by idiots who choose to blame Brazil. Great team, all playing for each other, unlike the English who were more bothered about their own individual performances!

Great tactics by Lowe to use Muller high up the pitch on the right , MotM by a mile in my opinion. Lessons to be learned by England and many more.

My Germany vs Argentina prediction is on.

Jackie – me too... but I predicted an Argentine win against Germany in the final and I am reconsidering after that performance...

Scolari must be Roy Hodgson in disguise, by always having players out of position and having the wrong players, formations and tactics to counter the opposition.

I was just hoping Germany to just win comfortably. Missed the game and almost fell off my chair when I checked the score. Gilberto Silva said it best. Professionals vs. Amateurs. Now if Holland can make short work of Messi and Co also...

This result was not due to a superb performance from Germany except in the sense that they took full advantage of an opportunity presented to them. Germany play to a rigid system, the main element of which is denying the opposition room to play and breaking quickly. Generally this works very well for them and helps to conceal the fact that they have some very ordinary players. So rigid is their system that, when they meet opposition that has the ability or nous to ask them to change their system during a game, they canÂ’t do it. They met such opposition in Algeria who were very unlucky not to beat Germany.

The game last night reminded me in many ways of EvertonÂ’s victory over Sunderland a few years ago by the same score... a game in which every deficiency Sunderland possessed was exposed in one period of 90 minutes. This is basically what happened to Brazil last night and Germany took full advantage and they should be congratulated for that but the fact is Brazil are a very poor team. More importantly, the players themselves must know they are poor.

GermanyÂ’s victory last night was assured once the second goal went in. Brazil knew then that they could not climb the mountain ahead of them, that they were not going to play in the final in their homeland and that for many of them their international career and reputation had ended. From that point on there was total psychological collapse and there was nobody on the pitch in a yellow jersey capable of taking charge, nobody fancied the ball and their defence, lacking a controller, fell apart and presented Germany with chance after chance which, for the most part they took. Brazil allowed them to stick to their game plan because they were so poor they could not make Germany feel a need to rethink it.

The look of surprise on German faces when the third goal went in was a wonder to behold because they knew then that Brazil had totally collapsed and that they had nothing to worry about. It became a doddle of a game... and yet, a few days earlier, they had been outplayed for much of their game against lowly Algeria. This says a lot about not only how poor Brazil are at the moment but how flattered Germany were by BrazilÂ’s ineptitude.

Germany will find it a lot more difficult against Argentina or Holland.

There have also been a few comments above about how poor England were in their three games in this World Cup but I donÂ’t see it as being as bad as some people make out. EnglandÂ’s number of chances made was not overtaken until the end of the quarter finals. They also led the possession tables until after the Round of 16 had finished, at which time they (the England players) were all on the beaches so they donÂ’t give the ball away more than anybody else.

No, the problem with England is not so much the players but the managers, whoever they are, who always feel obliged to play contingents from the top clubs, even if this means hammering square pegs into round holes all over the pitch. Remember all the attempts to get Gerrard and Lampard in the same team... even to the point of playing Scholes on the wing on one occasion?

The other problem is the managerÂ’s inability to identify when a player can no longer hack it or never could hack it. Gerrard should never have been on the plane and Henderson should never have been considered. Neither Jagielka nor Cahill are good enough and like all centre-backs they need protection from midfield and there was nobody able to provide it until Lampard played in the final game...

So why have Gerrard and Henderson there when they canÂ’t do it? This led to the centre-backsÂ’ deficiencies being horribly exposed. Nevertheless, the future looks brighter there with Stones coming through, a good defender and somebody who will be able to carry the ball out of defence and link up the back four with the midfield... providing that isnÂ’t coached out of him as being too risky.

The best English goalscorer we had in 1966 was Jimmy Greaves but Alf Ramsey played Geoff Hurst, much to the angst of the media of the day, because he fitted better into the system Ramsey wanted and it paid off. Greaves was a far better player overall and from a much bigger club than Hurst yet Ramsey was not afraid to say "Sorry, son, you don’t fit what I’m after." Would this happen today? ... No chance – the blue-eyed boy would be in there come what may.

IÂ’m not as pessimistic about England as most are. But I would be more optimistic if England had a forward-thinking, progressive manager who was not afraid to step out of the well-worn groove and do something adventurous. The problem is: the one who springs to mind is spoken for and he ainÂ’t going anywhere!

If Sturridge (especially) and Rooney had scored one each of the sitters they were presented with, England would have gone through in second place in the group. Who knows what might have happened then? With the confidence gained, even with a few players in there who really should not have been there, the outcome may not have been so embarrassing.

Dave Roberts, good analysis. Your concern about Stones having his adventurism coached out of him will not come to pass as long as RM is around.

I wonder how it feels for young, hugely talented players such as Stones and Barkley to have to adjust from the ultra positive, forward thinking coaching of RM to the pre-historic mindset of Hodgson and his paymasters?

I thought the German team were great last night and their play was intelligent. A lot of that was to do with positioning and moving into the right position for a team-mate to make his job easier and by the end I was hoping they could make it 8-0.

One of the things I did find funny last night was Luiz's audition for Hollywood. Throughout the whole match he was playing his usual dirty game in his own world and at the final whistle he didn't look gutted at all... yet, five minutes later, after looking at the home crowd and hearing the boos, he is in pieces and won't leave the pitch – it was terrible acting.

Germany attack in waves so there is no need for long hopeful passing because there is a line of players moving forwards as one. As soon as they have the ball, their sole objective is to get into the opposition box quickly with minimum risk-taking. It's bloody hard to defend against and the only way to do it is quick counters, as Ghana did in the group matches.