Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Semifinals: Day 1 Result

Young defender Philip Lahm scores the 90th minute match winner to send Germany through to the Final.

Germany 3-2 Turkey
links to goals:

A much depleted Turkish side dominated the first half of play, even grabbing a 1-0 lead by way of Ugur Boral's goal in the 22nd minute. But the inexperience of the Turkish squad was evident when they conceded the equaliser to Schweinsteiger just five minutes later. In the 79th minute, Miroslav Klose -- who's been surprisingly quiet this tournament -- recaptured his goal-scoring form with a well-taken header, giving the Germans the 2-1 advantage. True to form, the Turks did not let down, but continually pressed for the late game equaliser. Amazingly it came for the 4th consecutive match in the form of Semih Senturk's second last minute goal in as many matches. But the spirited Turk's Cinderella story finally came to an end four minutes later when Bayern's Philip Lahm found his way through the defense and decisively buried the match-winner in the upper left corner of Rustu's net.

Millions of people around the world lost the TV feed for the last fifteen minutes of the match because of a lightning strike on Euro 2008's TV headquartes in Vienna, Austria -- even though the match was played in Basel, Switzerland. It seems only the local Swiss cable feed and Al Jazeera were able to maintain live coverage for the epic finale.

2 comments:

Big Bend said...

that is some great futbol. i was just going to scroll through my dvr recording as i got home very late. but once i saw the first 5 minutes of the match i had to keep watching. hats off to the turks. not just an impressive performance in the tourney overall and exhilarating late goals/comebacks, but overall they played incredibly inspired, creative, aggressive futbol. really fun to watch. if you have a chance and you missed it you should all watch this one (despite the technical difficulties in the second half). i have it on dvr if anyone is interested...

jv said...

totally agree, team a... i thought the turks were going to play completely defensive and still get steam-rolled. completely surprised and impressed with how aggressive they were. imagine if they'd had their starters available.

also-- what the f is up with the staple gun? anyone who thinks footballers aren't tough should watch those clips of dudes getting there heads stitched and stapled on the sidelines... and then running back in. whack.