Germany crush England
Posted: Jun 27 2010
England are out of the 2010 World Cup after being thrashed 4-1 by Germany at the Free State Stadium.
Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski scored and it looked comfortable, but Matthew Upson's tally gave England a chance to comeback. The Three Lions will be aggrieved that a Frank Lampard strike was wrongly disallowed at the end of the first-half, but Thomas Mueller's second-half brace gave coach Joachim Leow's side a convincing 4-1 victory.
Both sides used line-ups that were relatively unchanged. Three Lions boss Fabio Capello used the same starting XI that defeated Slovenia, keeping faith in Matthew Upson, James Milner, and Jermaine Defoe. Meanwhile Loew made a solitary variation to his squad as Klose, who returned from suspension, replaced the injured Cacau in attack.
Klose proved to be decisive for his national team yet again at the World Cup. A long ball was misread by John Terry and the striker easily held off Upson to poke past James and give the Germans the advantage after 20 minutes. The three-time World Cup winners had been the settled side and were full value for their lead.
David James saved Capello's men from going two down. Mueller put in a sublime through ball for Klose and the Portsmouth shot stopper got down quickly to block his close range effort.
It was a sign of things to come as Klose lobbed the ball over to Thomas Mueller inside the box, who flicked across goal to Podolski. The 25-year-old controlled and fired low past James for a 2-0 scoreline. England looked second-best, but going behind by another goal sprung them into life.
Minutes later, Upson made up for his previous error, heading in Steven Gerrard's cross to make it 2-1. It was turning out to be a thriller.
A most controversial decision on 38 minutes kept England behind. Lampard's dipping shot from outside the area hit the crossbar and bounced downwards. Lampard and Capello were already celebrating the goal, but the linesman ruled it did not cross the line. Replays proved it to be the wrong decision as the ball was clearly in the net and the team in the red strip were up in arms before the half-time whistle blew.
The second-half started with England continuing to look for that elusive equaliser. There was bad luck for Lampard once again, the Chelsea star's curling freekick from a central position struck the crossbar with Manuel Neuer beaten.
Germany found their third with a textbook counter. Mueller started and finished the move, spraying wide to Bastian Schweinsteiger before getting the ball back and lashing a low and hard effort past James. It was 3-1 on 66 minutes.
It wasn't long until it was four goals for the 2006 hosts. Oezil beat Gareth Barry for pace down the left and squared for Mueller again and that surely spelled the end of England's World Cup hopes even if there were 20 minutes left.
Neuer denied Gerrard a consolation with an excellent figertip save after the Liverpool skipper had linked up with Rooney. There was little more action as the spirits of England had been dashed.
Germany move on to the quarter-finals to play the winner of Argentina versus Mexico.
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: 2010-06-27 18:06
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