Soccer News & Fansite

Germany 3, Uruguay 2

Uruguay Starting Lineup:

Goalkeeper: Muslera

Uruguay: Fucile, Lugano, Godin, Caceres, Maxi Pereira, Perez (Gargano, 77), Arevalo Rios, Cavani (Abreu, 88), Suarez, Forlan.

Germany Starting Lineup:

Goalkeeper: Butt

Boateng, Friedrich, Mertesacker, Aogo, Khedira, Schweinsteiger, Muller, Ozil (Tasci, 91), Jansen (Kroos, 81), Cacau (Kiessling, 73).

Speaking from a strictly American point of view, all soccer matches – especially at the World Cup – should be like third-place matches. When two teams want to honor their reputations but don’t face the choking, suffocating pressure of the World Cup final, they play a liberated brand of soccer which seeks an attractive on-field product in addition to a desirable scoreboard result. On Saturday night in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the world was reminded just how delightful the bronze medal game can be.

This is the 19th World Cup. The previous editions of the third-place playoff have generated an average of 3.94 goals. Among the last eight stagings of “the battle for the bronze,” only two – the 1990 match between England and Italy and the 1998 clash between Holland and Croatia – failed to produce an overall total of at least four goals. In the most recent third-place tilt, in 2006, Germany scored three goals in fending off Portugal on home soil. Evidently, the well-practiced boys of Die Mannschaft had so much fun four years ago that they decided to re-create history once again, but this time on the African continent and in the middle of a steady rain that didn’t detract from the quality of play.

Yes, Germany once again scored three goals to take home the bronze. In many ways, however, it was amazing that these two teams combined for only five total goals, because they both created so many more glorious chances over the course of this 94-minute thriller (one minute of stoppage time in the first half, three in the second). Both Thomas Muller (Germany) and Diego Forlan (Uruguay) scored their fifth goals of the World Cup, as the two leading lights on these sides added to their credentials in South Africa. Edinson Cavani also tickled the twine for “La Celeste,” but Germany’s Marcell Jansen and Sami Khedira both produced unexpected goals to lift coach Joachim Low’s team to a satisfying triumph following Wednesday’s crushing semifinal loss to Spain. Yet, as strange as it may sound, those five moments of goal-scoring glory could have been just a part of a greater point-producing orgy. This contest could have been 5-4 without much of a thought, and 6-5 – don’t laugh – was entirely realistic.

Consider: Forlan narrowly missed (to the top left corner) with a free kick from a very dangerous position in the sixth minute. In the ninth minute, Germany’s Arne Friedrich hit the crossbar with a header that – had it been a pinch more accurate – would have cleanly beaten Uruguayan goalkeeper Fernando Muslera. In the 21st minute, Khedira butchered a German attack that looked extremely promising. In the 24th minute, Forlan got free no more than five yards from the left post and released an effective header that was about to beat German keeper Hans-Jorg Butt, but defender Per Mertesacker stuck his leg into the air to deftly block the ball away from the goal mouth and snuff out the likely score for Uruguay.

In the 41st minute, Uruguay’s Luis Suarez – who was shamefully booed by an unsporting South African crowd still smarting over Suarez’s (perfectly reasonable and intelligent) handball in Uruguay’s quarterfinal win over Ghana, the African darling of the tournament – had a tremendous chance as he rode up on the right flank and had plenty of targets to choose from. No more than 15 yards from the goal and slightly to the right of the goal mouth, Suarez could only hit a ground-ball shot that drifted three yards wide of the left post. It was a very disappointing effort from a man who clearly seemed to be affected by the appalling treatment he received from an African crowd that just wouldn’t allow the Ghana-Uruguay match to fade from its collective memory. Suarez is only 23 years old, for all of his excellence, and Saturday night’s events reminded us that inside the body of an elite goal-scorer exists a very human heart and mind.

In the final minute of the first half, Cacau got free for Germany up the middle of the field, but a late tackle from Uruguay’s Jorge Fucile – who missed his team’s semifinal against The Netherlands (as did Suarez) – barely averted that threat.

In the second half, the near-misses on both sides just kept coming, along with the goals that periodically dotted the landscape. In both the 47th and 62nd minutes, Suarez launched quality shots that Butt – who played a strong match despite the 3-2 scoreline – managed to parry aside. The ball Suarez struck in the 62nd minute was particularly loaded with spins and curves, thanks to the Jabulani ball design which has confounded goalkeepers in South Africa, but Butt was up to the task of steering the ball away with his hands.

In the 75th and 87th minutes, it was a German striker who oh-so-easily could have lit up the scoreboard. Substitute Stefan Kiessling – in his 75th-minute chance – unleashed a very strong blast from the left side of the penalty box, but it’s lack of an angle allowed Muslera, standing still in the middle of the goal mouth – to punch the ball away. In the 87th minute, Kiessling got free in the middle of the box near the penalty spot on a counter-attack that the Germans have used so effectively throughout the past month on the African continent. However, his left-footed shot sailed well over the goal in a profound waste of a scoring opportunity.

Then, on what turned out to be the final play of regulation time, came the most agonizing almost-goal of them all. With Germany nursing a 3-2 lead provided by Khedira’s header in the 82nd minute, Uruguay earned one last free kick just outside the penalty area and in the middle section of the field. The ball was placed at a point consistent with the right edge of the goal mouth, meaning that a leftward-swerving kick was in order. This was tailor-made for Forlan, in many eyes the best player at the 2010 World Cup. The Uruguayan superstar delivered a boot that was worthy of a top-class scorer, but his ball whacked the crossbar about two feet from the top-left corner. Butt got his hand up within a foot of the ball as it arrived at the bar, and soccer fans will always wonder if the German keeper could have made the save had the ball been just a foot lower. However, that’s not the scenario which unfolded; the ball stayed out, and the official’s whistle then sounded to end a thrilling match which could have featured 10 goals, not the actual five which were formally tallied.

In the end, the difference for Germany – on all three goals, but especially the last two by Jansen (56th minute) and then the winner by Khedira – was the poor goalkeeping of Muslera. The Uruguayan netminder did not judge the flight of the ball with any acuity or comfort. His bobble on a shot by Bastian Schweinsteiger allowed Muller to tap in an easy goal for the European side in the 18th minute. The two German goals in the second half were both the result of Muslera’s chronic inability to judge the flight of a cross from the right side. Muslera remained trapped in his own six-yard box and made very tardy reactions to balls that should have been caught or, at the very least, punched to safety. Had the goalkeepers been reversed in this game, Uruguay would have won. As it is, Germany – thanks to Butt and a smart use of deliveries into the penalty box – managed to prevail and notch its third top-three finish in the past three World Cups. The Germans notched a runner-up finish in 2002 and have now strung together back-to-pack bronze medals in 2006 and 2010. No nation has been more consistent this past decade at the World Cup; such a fact should be a source of considerable consolation for a squad that will fly home with relatively happy hearts.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer