Germany Puts Away Argentina
It’s a soccer lesson that has been hammered home time and again over the decades: Never, under any circumstance, at any time, anywhere, give Germany a second chance.
Argentina must not have been listening.
Coach Jose Pekerman’s team Friday was 11 minutes from a place in the semifinals of the 2006 World Cup. It had Germany on the ropes. It was leading their quarterfinal encounter, 1-0, and was seemingly in control.
But it failed to finish the job, allowing the Germans to climb up off the floor, tie the score at 1-1, survive the overtime and win on penalty kicks, 4-2.
The result was that Germany -- Juergen Klinsmann’s Germany, for this team is very much the creation of the Huntington Beach resident --will play Italy in the semifinals on Tuesday.
By then, Argentina’s players will be scattered around the world, wondering where it all went wrong and why one of the deepest and most skilled teams in the tournament did not even make it to the medal round.
German goalkeeper Jens Lehmann is one answer. The man so controversially chosen by Klinsmann ahead of former No. 1 Oliver Kahn made saves on Roberto Ayala and Esteban Cambiasso in penalty kicks to shatter Argentine dreams of a third world championship.
“It’s just expected that a German goalkeeper makes the saves,” Lehmann said.
At the end, he was mobbed by the German team, players, coaches and all, including the once-affronted Kahn, as most of the flag-waving 72,000 at the Olympic Stadium celebrated yet another in a long line of German comeback triumphs.
“It was like a Hitchcock movie,” Klinsmann said. “We always believed that we’d come back.”
Unlike Pekerman, whose substitutions were bizarre, and who afterward resigned as Argentina’s coach, Klinsmann made exactly the right choices to give his team fresh legs late in the match. He first added speed on the wing with David Odonkor, then muscle in the midfield with Tim Borowski and finally finishing up front with Oliver Neuville.
It was Borowski who delivered the telling blow.
With Germany in desperate search of the tying goal to cancel out Ayala’s 49th-minute headed goal for Argentina off a Juan Roman Riquelme corner kick, Michael Ballack chipped the ball forward to Borowski.
Borowski headed it forward to Miroslav Klose who, despite being closely marked by Juan Pablo Sorin, headed it just inside the left post beyond the diving reach of backup goalkeeper Leonardo Franco.
The goal, Klose’s tournament-high fifth and his 10th in two World Cups, came at exactly 79:44. That’s how close Argentina came to winning.
Franco had come into the match only eight minutes earlier when starting goalkeeper Roberto Abbondanzieri had to be substituted after injuring his rib cage in an aerial collision with Klose.
That substitution was forced on Pekerman, but his other two moves were being furiously questioned by Argentine media after the game.
Right after sending in Franco in the 71st minute, Pekerman sent Cambiasso on in place of Riquelme in the 72nd, later claiming that Riquelme was “tired,” and then Julio Cruz on in place of Hernan Crespo in the 79th.
That used up all three of his substitutions but left such players as Javier Saviola, Pablo Aimar and Lionel Messi sitting on the bench. A good argument could be made that Pekerman thus left the World Cup on the bench.
Messi, in particular, might have given the Germans all kinds of trouble in the 30 minutes of overtime. “We always had that option in mind,” Pekerman said, “but it wasn’t the right moment.”
After Argentina had been ousted, Pekerman fell on his sword.
“I think the cycle is over,” he said. “I’m sure I’m not going to continue. I’m convinced that everything I had within my reach I have done and it’s time to move on to other things,” he said. “I always believed in this team, these players, this squad, and they did not let me down. We believed until the last penalty.”
It was a strange quarterfinal, the second 45 minutes bearing no resemblance to the first 45, when both teams appeared more intent on not making a mistake than on playing the sort of soccer of which both are capable.
Klinsmann fielded his usual starting lineup. The only change for Argentina was that Carlos Tevez started in place of Saviola.
Neither team troubled the other’s goalkeeper in the half, with the closest anyone came to scoring being Ballack’s header that flew just high and wide. Overall, Argentina had the better of the play.
The second half was dramatically different. Ayala’s well-taken goal awoke the Germans and also the Argentine fans, and the match suddenly took on an urgency it had lacked before.
The substitutions changed the chemistry, but once Klose had tied it up, the outcome appeared more likely to go Germany’s way.
Klinsmann’s team made no mistakes with its penalty kicks. Neuville, Ballack, Lukas Podolski and Borowski each fired their shots home with no sign of strain.
Cruz made Argentina’s first shot and Maxi Rodriguez also scored, but Lehmann saved from Ayala and Cambiasso and it was all over.
“The team fought to the end,” said Ballack, who led by example at both ends of the field.
Said Klinsmann: “It’s difficult to find words. I’m incredibly happy, proud and thankful.
“The crowd carried us. They believed in us. This is a team that has grown together over the past six weeks, and we want to be world champions.”
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Men of the moment
The three goalkeepers who have won two World Cup shootouts:
Toni Shumacher, West Germany -- Shumacher is best remembered in the 1982 semifinal for a brutal hit on France’s Patrick Battiston, who came away with a concussion and broken teeth. But when the game went to penalty kicks, he saved on shots by Didier Six and Maxime Bossis in a 5-4 victory. Four years later, in a quarterfinal against host Mexico, he made saves against Fernando Quirarte and Raul Servin in a 4-1 decision.
* Sergio Goycochea, Argentina -- He didn’t get into the lineup until starter Nery Pumpido broke his leg in the second group game, but by the end of the 1990 tournament, Goycochea was a national hero. His save on Faruk Hadzibegic clinched a 3-2 victory over Yugoslavia in the quarterfinals, then he knocked the host Italians out in the semifinals with stops on Roberto Donadoni and Aldo Serena.
* Claudio Taffarel, Brazil -- By comparison with their heralded teammates in the field, Brazilian goalkeepers get little credit. But Taffarel came up big in two World Cups, making a save on Daniele Massaro during a 3-2 shootout victory over Italy in the 1994 championship game at the Rose Bowl, then saving on Philip Cocu and Ronald de Boer in a 4-2 decision over the Netherlands in the semifinals four years later.
Source: Complete Book of the World Cup 2006
