The one person who was terrible tonight was Sneijder. It was painful watching him. And I absolutely agree with the great Cannavaro that changing goal keepers in the previous match was a huge mistake for Holland.

I think 'struggle' may be overstating the case a little. Germany have the best midfield in the competition themselves and I think Argentina look a little ordinary once you take Messi out of the equation. I'd hazard a guess Germany would have scored at least one goal in 90 minutes against either of those sides tonight - they've already scored 17 goals in six matches (and have yet to have been held scoreless)

Argentina have a very strong defence, I'll give them that, and they've never once been behind in this tournament, but all bets will be off if they concede to Germany and have to chase the game.

Think Algeria but with much higher quality players. Germany will not have an easy game. Germany's defence is slow and Hoewedes is useless. Germany are not invincible.

Definitely : if Germany's form slipped and they reverted back to their Ghana or Algeria form, it would give Argentina a chance. The Argies might even be quite happy to try and defend and take it all the way to penalties and win it that way.

If Germany are at the level they were against France and Brazil though, I could see then win it 1-0 or 2-0 in normal time,

It wasn't the best performance in 'football history' - but I don't quite know why some seem so keen to downplay Germany's performance. Yes, Brazil were terrible, but that does not take away from Germany's sheer efficiency in the final third - as another FM stated Germany rarely made unforced errors - indeed, during that crazy period after Klose's goal Germany made 16 successful passes; only one pass did not lead to a goal. And as for the Algeria and Ghana matches; Germany were set up quite differently in those matches to the way they have been since the France game.

Against Algeria and Ghana, Lahm was played as a DM with Schweinsteiger, Metresacker was played at CB, Gotze started, and Muller was played up front - Boateng was also played at RB. Germany's issues there, was that Metresacker's slow pace could not handle the physicality of Ghana (nor the fast pace of Algeria), Gotze was dire, Lahm somewhat struggled in the DM role - with several misplaced passes, and in the Algeria game Hummels, one of Germany's most important players (tbh as vital as Neuer and Muller) was not present - instead the underwhelming Mustafi played.

Germany since the Algeria game have become far more balanced with Lahm returning to RB, Boateng and Hummels paired together at CB, Schweinsteiger and Khedira starting together, and Klose upfront. They've also used Schurrle excellently as an impact sub, adding much needed pace to Germany's game in the second half of matches.

The final, I'd imagine will be pretty close - the 7-1 is a fluke result. But one thing I'd say about Argentina is that throughout the tournament the majority of sides they've faced are sides who are poor in the final third - Iran, Belgium, Switzerland all come to mind. Indeed when they faced side who were decent in the final third - Nigeria - they weren't so defensively compact. Still, they did well against Holland whose attack is their biggest strength - although that was a very cagey affair.

If Argentina do win, I imagine it'll be a ground out 1-0 or something like that. Germany do seem to be the favourites, and they do look good, but anything can happen in football.

But as I and others are saying, football isn't like that. Had the Spain that beat Australia at a canter turned up they might have put five past Brazil. Had that same Spain team run into the German side that fluffed their lines against Ghana escaping with a draw then Spain might have won last night's semi final at a canter.

Your question about the Dutch has been answered at least once, and with different and valid explanations, because a teams best performance has to come somewhere, why could the French not repeat their performance against the Swiss, for example. We could by your own logic ask why Germany hadn't previously performed to the same level as their semi final as well.

On the matter of downplaying Germany, which was mentioned earlier, nobody has. What we are doing is assessing their performance in the context of somebody, or a statistic, calling it the greatest of all time. It was an incredible result and an unbelievable performance but we are being asked to discuss it against an unrealistic yardstick.

Noone who has watched Brazil's 4-1 win over Italy in 1970 from start to finish would surely believe Germany did better on Tuesday night. The great international sides win trophies and this German side still has to finish the job.

They had a decent 10 minutes, by attacking like headless chickens, which is the way they played all tournament.

They were clueless, and played without any formal system, which is okay if you have a team so superior to everyone else, and Brazil have had teams like that, but this one is worse than most.

They were very lucky to get as far as they did.

The result was down to the diabolical play by Brazil, not because of Germanys quality, although they do have that.

They have been the best team here, but when you look at all the big names here, they've all had much better teams in the past.

Wrong thread, Gromit!

You can see why Germany achieved such a high rating though. Teams just don't score seven goals in a World Cup semi final, it's unheard of......it's meant to be a clash between two of the best and in form teams in the entire tournament. Brazil weren't down to ten or nine men either.

The reason I'd rate it as better than NL's trashing of Spain is that the stakes were much lower in that match. It was an opening group match and as the top two seeds, both sides knew they could probably afford to lose and still have a good chance of progressing. It was definitely the performance of the tournament up until the semi but I think Germany's blistering five goals in 20 minutes in the first half of a WC semi final tops it.

It's meant to be, but it wasn't. Brazil were woeful, and allowed Germany to win at a canter.

Yes, they probably should have been eliminated by Chile or Colombia. But then again, that doesn't mean they were a shambles of a team and an accident waiting to happen.....had either Chile or Colombia knocked them out, it would only have been by a one goal margin (and they were two very strong sides).

Germany have gone on these goalscoring bursts before, so perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised. They trashed a very defensive Republic of Ireland 6-1 in Dublin in Oct 2012 when the Irish had never even conceded five goals at home in their history and hammered Portugal 4-1 in the opening group match (and could have had a few more into the bargain).

BIB - 4:0

Brazil without Silva and Neymar were ridiculous. As much as I love Fabio Cannavaro who is the best defender I have ever seen play, I really must question his praise for David Luiz before the semi-final

That looked that to me in every game. They were rabbits in the headlights the whole tournament, and their harem scarem tactics are not going to trouble the best teams.

They had two very good players, and they missed the Germany game, and the rest didn't know what to do, and fell apart.

This group of players were the ones who had to represent Brazil in their own tournament, but had the misfortune to be the worst Brazil team in most peoples living memory. They knew the expectations, and they crumbled when things became tough.

It's all relative though, isn't it? They're clearly the worst Brazil team in history but even a very bad Brazilian team would still be a better side than many of the 32 teams in this year's competition.

It's a shame Chile didn't knock them out in the last 16 match, especially when they hit the crossbar at the end. I suspect Germany might have given anyone a trashing in that semi final though in the form they were in, especially if they got an early goal......probably 3-0 or 4-0 or something, unless they had played an ultra defensive team like NL, Bel or Arg.

Yes, I can see why they achieved a high rating.

I am not disputing the rating. What you cannot dispute is the fact that team employ tactics to combat opposing players, stifling them sometimes at the expense of their own strengths.

Mexico 86 was a classic example. In the final Lothar Matthaus was basically sacrificed as an attacking threat to dilute the impact of Maradona. He had a quiet game but produced that one magic pass to send Burruchaga in for the winner.

I don't what rating system would bring nuances like that to the table. It would just look at it as Burruchaga achieving a goal and a shot on target without context.


I have never sought to claim either Holland or Germany's performance is stronger, all I am doing is challenging your previous opinion that Brazil were better in their semi final than Spain were in their first match and to be honest there's nowhere left to go if you stubbornly claim that to be the case.

Yet again.

You have no more idea than anyone else what version of any team is going to turn up on a particular day or what result would ensue.

Not that it should need to be said, but Elo Ratings shouldn't be used to judge a single performance. They are an iterative method of assessing how good each team is. If a team's result is better than their rating suggests, they raise it, and the opposite is true if a team underperforms.

The way they work, they have to lift Germany's rating by as much as they reduce Brazil's - they don't make a judgment on the reason the scoreline was because Germany played well or Brazil played poorly. In this game, Germany and Brazil both had high ratings (because both teams had just made it to a World Cup semi-final), so when Germany won by six goals, they had to lift the rating to unprecedented levels. It's not an actual qualitative judgment of Germany's performance.

Yes, that's a very good assessment. Also, one way that the rating might be slightly suspect is that Germany didn't 'dominate' the game, crazy as that sounds. They had ten shots on target and seven of them went in, so it was more a case of devastating and lethal finishing by one side.

As a scoreline for a World Cup semi final though it's off the scale and unlikely ever to be repeated : normally the teams in the semis are in form, well organised and defend well.

I don't think Germany would have lost to anyone on Tuesday in the form they were in and probably would have beaten any team in this tournament in 90 minutes. Obviously not by seven goals to one, but their general play was outstanding, their finishing was lethal and their attitude and confidence was first rate.

Let's see how they do against a proper midfield and defence. Brazil was a joke, so it's difficult to assess how good Germany were without seeing how they play against Argentina on Sunday.

Personally I think they'll breach the Argentinian defence. They've scored in every single game so far and I think they've too much firepower to be held scoreless.

Germany played some great stuff, but come on it was down to Brazil being so truly awful.

Yes, but Germany made them look awful. Could England or Italy or Spain have beaten Brazil 7-1 on Tuesday? I very much doubt it.....wouldn't surprise me if they could only manage a draw or a win by one goal at best.

They didn't though, that is the whole point. Brazil were a total shambles, and that wasn't due to Germany. Germany just took advantage of the mess they faced. Brazil were all over the place, and any decent team would have done a similar job on them.

Germany actually missed a few good chances, and were playing at an amble, rather than a team at full pace, and unplayable.

Have a look at how Brazil started the game though. Bearing in mind that Germany were the favourites, Brazil were surprisingly positive and mounted a wave of attacks on the German goal in the opening 10 minutes. Indeed the first German goal came just after yet another attack by the Brazilians. It was the goal that knocked the stuffing out of Brazil and made them very edgy and nervous from then on and the second goal on 20 minutes was an absolute hammer blow that left them shattered.

Had the likes of England or Italy or Spain being playing Brazil, I'd say the Brazilians would have started in a similar fashion, wouldn't have conceded after 10 minutes and the scoreline would have been very tight at halftime.....those teams just wouldn't have the ability or the confidence or even the bottle to knock in five goals against Brazil, not even against the weakened version minus Neymar and Silva.