Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
Germany always gets overlooked a little bit, but I think thats more because they're assumed to be a quality side.
It just goes to show how skewed the World Rankings are, people always fellate teams like England and Portugal and overlook Germany despite the fact that Portugal has done nothing since losing in 2004 and England hasnt done anything since my Grandfather was a young boy while Germany has played in the WC final in 02, 3rd in 06 and the Euro Cup Final in 08.
Theres a few surprises in there like Muller and Badstuber, but anyone watching the Champions League has seen those two and they are very impressive. Very young but already solid first team players for a team in the CL final.
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ya and they have been dominating the youth tournaments lately as well
plus they have guys like Podolski who always find that next level when playing for his country, the future looks very bright for them, and this year has a nice mix of old and young guys
Quote:
Originally Posted by GirlySports
Germany and Italy are never impressive in qualifying or even the group stage for that matter. This hurts their FIFA Ranking which they don't really care about.
But get to the business end of a big tournament and they are the two toughest teams to knock out. Italy hasn't lost a knockout game in the World Cup or European Championships in regular time since 1988!
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Germany has dominated their qualifying in the recent past, Italy has had troubles, but Germany didn't lose in WC qualifying and only lost once in Qualifying for Euro 2008
they are one of the teams that really crushes lesser competition