EM 2012--Day Fourteen Recap

Day 14: Recap

Record—

Spread: 7-19

Straight up: 11-10-5

Ohhh…my head. A crazed cadre of small elfin-like creatures appears to be mining what remains of my front temporal lobes with pick axes. What an incredible night it must have been! I remember all of the trilling display put on by the Mannschaft….but not much else I’m afraid. Hopefully I didn’t sire a son. It’d be a tough call whether to name him Phillip, Sami, Miroslav, or Marco.

Onwards we roll…a world record 15^th consecutive competitive win for the Mannschaft as we continue the quest for our first trophy in over 16 years. Time to dust off that “Wir fahren nach Berlin” Easyjetter remix. Thanks to Löw’s clever tactical rest of Gomez, Müller, and Podolski, we’ve got the freshest tournament squad with the highest confidence. Our boys should be fit enough to run with anyone for back-to-back 120s. The German trainer shocked everyone with his gutsy lineup selection. His plan was to “introduce some unpredictability into the attack, along with speed and mobility.” Honestly, who would of thunk it?

Editor’s retroactive notes:

Who would have thunk that I spent it in a Biker Bar?

From Round Two:

I’ll still urge two extra bold moves. Shock the world by starting Klose in place of Gomez, even after his sensational goal. Klose’s playmaking ability represents the one X-factor the Dutch WON’T be prepared for. Switch back to Gomez for subsequent matches if necessary. Just keep em’ guessing. Second, give Götze, Reus, or Kroos a shot at Poldi’s position. If it doesn’t work then let it be.

From Round Three:

Poldi, Gomez, Müller, and Schweine are due for a break. It should be either Götze or Reus.

From The Quarterfinals Section:

Löw may have some surprises for us in his starting eleven. He hasn’t even touched Reus, Götze, or Gündogan yet.

Hehe…not too shabby for guy who woke up at 4:30 a.m. this morning, fully clothed, and clutching a stale piece of French Bread Pizza. Man oh man. All of this partying is turning out to be some seriously hard work. A word of advice to all the avid joggers out there: Before heading out for your morning run, take a moment to consider whether or not you’re still legally drunk. Do some rough calculations. Your body metabolizes your blood-alcohol level at a rate of about 0.015% per hour. If you stopped drinking at 2 a.m., 5 a.m. is just too damn early.

My head…whew. I’m more partied out than Slurms Mackenzie. Tempting to take a night off and sip Chamomile while watching reruns of “Downtown Abbey”, but I can’t very well cancel on the Spanish fans, can I? No, we’ve more work to do. After the Germans capture Europe, however, I will need a solid month of Netflix and popcorn. Come over if you like, but NO SEX. I just wanna cuddle…

Hot Girl Standings---

Country	Tally	Games Played
Ukraine	101	3 (finished)
Greece	70	4 (finished)
Germany	52	4
Poland	51	3 (finished)
Sweden	49	3 (finished)
Spain	46	3
Ireland	44	3 (finished)
France	44	3
Portugal	38	4
Russia	32	3 (finished)
England	26	3
Croatia	22	3 (finished)
Italy	21	3
Netherlands	21	3 (finished)
Czech Republic	20	4 (finished)
Denmark	15	3 (finished)

Way to go, Mädels! We all knew you would come through….particularly German broadcast ZDF, which aired a five-minute special report on “Germany’s Female Fans” as part of the pre-match buildup. The segment included interviews with chicks drunk enough to make the Girls Gone Wild Crew look Policy Scholars. There was also a snippet from the previous day’s Mannschaft Press Conference. A reporter actually asked Thomas Müller, “Was halten Sie von euren weiblichen Unterstützung?” (What do you think of your female support?) If he had a reply, I certainly didn’t hear it over the raucous laughter that flooded the bar.

Finally, there was a short montage of hot fan girls scored to Crazytown’s “Butterfly”. Evidently, there were even more cuties that I missed and hence were not counted. Before anyone asks, NO, the domestic television montage doesn’t count. That would just be cheating. Only girls that I spot on the international feed are counted. I try to keep the playing field as level as possible, and your friendly bookie is quite the seasoned scout. Of course, even I cannot be expected to be thinking about women as often as…say…ZDF. They got em’ all. Get off my turf, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen! I enrage the uptight females around here. And while we’re at it. IT’S BEEN ELEVEN FUCKING YEARS! Why are we still playing Crazytown’s “Butterfly”? Sigh. That song briefly reached the top of the American charts in 2001. Here in Germany it simply never went away. German girls still find it enchanting. Sing a few bars of it and you’ll sweep them right off their feet: 

“Come my lady, come, come my lady…you’re my butterfly, SCHUGGAR baby.”

Guess it don’t take much. If it’s in simple and in English, you’re good to go. Expect nothing less from a country where David Hasselhoff still enjoys some modest popularity and songs like “Sexy Vampire”, “Let’s get Back to Bed, Boy”, and “Make Me Wet (makin’ love in the shower)” were once number one hits. Thanks to that last one I have been unable to take shower sex seriously for nearly eight years. Damn you, Eurotrash pop charts!!

Wasn’t I meant to be talking about something else? Oh right…..

Editor’s retroactive notes:

“500 Shades of Euro-Trash”. It’s coming. Damned if I didn’t pick a FAR too ambitious  number. That’s not like me at all ;) 

Ramble On, Vicey

--A recent article in the Economist magazine cites three separate academic studies that purport to empirically verify how the Blogosphere cheapens the public discourse. HELLO OVERPAID, IMMATURE FUCKTARDS OF MEDIOCRE INTELLIGENCE. Nothing much beyond that really. Just wanted to say “hi.”

Editor’s retroactive notes:

Proud to have done my part to “cheapen the discourse”

--I’m putting my foot down on ZDF. Not only must they stop pilfering my ideas, get rid of the set in the middle of the water, and give the bitch an ACTUAL microphone…NO MORE  PRE-MATCH MUSIC SEGMENT!! This is Euro 2012, not USA’s “Summer Rental”. Besides that the sight of a bunch of orca fat Krauts sitting on the Ostsee, squirming around in their seats as if it’s supposed to constitute dancing is adversely affecting my erection.

Editor’s retroactive notes:

Happy to go the rest of my life without ever seeing the “Travel Tussie” again.

--So Merkel finally made it a match. Blah. She should have invited Helle Thoring Schmidt for a little “girl time”. Even though I voted for the Chancellor’s party in the last election, I’m getting awfully sick about hearing what a splendid job she’s done. Why not call her a pragmatic sellout? I even consider that a compliment for a politician. Serve the people. If you’re ‘principles’ are completely inflexible….well then fuck you.

--Löw can pretend that he wishes to remain “unpredictable” all he wishes. In reality, he not only stole that line from me, he’s also thinking along the same lines. Gomez, Poldi, and Müller needed a break. Klose, Schürrle, and Reus needed some playing time and the confidence that comes with it. End of story. It’s all quite simple. Ignore the sensationalism.

--Salpigidis as the lone striker? What the about-facing fuck were you thinking Santos? Careful not to get the shit kicked out of you in that already long Greek unemployment line!

--Somewhat nervy 39 minutes until Lahm did…well…what Lahm does best: quietly weave his way forward and score a crucial goal. Here’s your complete list of moments that Löw likely felt that miserable pain in the pit of is stomach; the one that pierces your abdomen when you realize you’ve been foolishly over-confident. The one that always strikes me when I stumble out of bed and realize that I made a clumsy drunken pass at a soristitute who thought I was “like, really weird…I mean, like, really REALLY weird…and stuff” the night before.

1) Klose bad timing – 1^st, 3^rd, 9^th, 22^nd, 23^rd, 49^th, 53^rd

(To break it even further down:

2 offsides

1 disallowed goal (offsides)

2 Skewed headers

2 languid runs

Yikes. Thank the fuck Christ he scored in 68^th. We almost witnessed the end.

2) Schürrle not clicking – 10^th, 11^th, 31^st, 32^nd, 46^th, 55^th, 59^th 

Not a bad effort from him in first half injury time. It was so close I initially thought it went in. Then a pretty girl tapped me on the shoulder to halt the celebration. She also asked me what the hell I was doing scrawling into a notebook. Sigh. I’m afraid I couldn’t come up with a very good answer.

3) Reus has rust – 10^th, 26^th, 44^th, 49^th

Of course, that was one helluva a goal from him in the 74^th. Even if the Klose rebound fell straight to him, lord did he emphatically hammer it home. The boy has some serious game….unlike your friendly bookie….who still hasn’t learned to put the notebook down and chat up the pretty girls. (weeping silently). One day, Vicey. One day you’ll cease being an absent-minded academic who ignores all of the important things in life. One day you’ll be an attentive boyfriend, maybe even a loving husband and father. One day it will also start hailing money from the sky and you’ll wake up with three more inches of meat.

--Dirty, dirty play from Samaras, Torosidis, Tzavelas, and Kyriakos. We might have seen a penalty in this match. Alas the refs have clearly been instructed to refrain from pointing to the spot. Probably for the best, but the Hellenes played a dirty game. They themselves looked like they could use a shower, shave, haircut, and a Neanderthal upgrade makeover perhaps.

--It is with great pleasure that Professor Pete passes the entire German class:

Mesut Özil	A+
Phillip Lahm	A+
Sami Khedira	A+
Manuel Neuer	A+
Miroslav Klose	A-
Marco Reus	A-
Matt Hummels	B+
Holger Badstuber	B
Thomas Müller	B
Bastian Schweinsteiger	B
Jerome Boateng	B-
Andreas Schürrle	B-

By far the most difficult to grade was Boateng. He set up Khedira’s goal, yet made two bad giveaways at the back, one of which resulted in the Samaras goal. It was also his handball that gave Greece the late spot kick. Schweine and Schürrle might have received even lower marks had it not been such a lopsided victory. Winning changes matters. Let’s flunk the Greeks:

Dimitris Salpigidis	B
Girogios Samaras	B
Michalis Sifakis	C
Kyriakos	C
Kostas Katsouranis	C
Ionnis Maniatis	C
Grigos Makis	C-
Sokratis	D+
Softris Ninis	D+
Theofanis Gekas	D-
Girgios Fotakis	D-
Vasilas Torosidis	F
Giorgios Tzavelas	F

Sending the right and left backs to summer school. Terrible game, exhausted as they might have been.

--Alright, La Roja fans. It took all afternoon, but I’ve managed to get motivated enough to once again consider ingesting alcohol. Here comes Vicey…….

Editor’s retroactive notes:

It was around this time that I learned to hate booze…