Shambles, I wonder which German team you are talking about when you speak about playing bad and winning. It looks to me as if you'd regurgitate past experiences seasoned with a good dose of prejudice.

This year's team I can rather see playing well and loosing disastrously to a team profiting from their bad and unexpwerienced defense play. In my opinion, the present German team is much more entertaining than the last four or five; worse perhaps from the success angle but they play quicker and with more risk than the years before.

Some of the old teams were not received well even when coming home with a second place, for their play was awful (last time in Mexico, for instance). This team can loose in the next round and will be cheered nonetheless. The fans have a good feeling for that.

Wolfgang