Für das deutsche Vaterland

There's a damn good reason why Philip Lahm is my favourite German footballer.
And he proved it tonight pulling off that last minute stunner of a goal in added time, thus robbing Turkey of a chance to play in extra time and prove their worth, cos honestly, even though its was a below second-choice team that they were playing with, they displayed exceptional resilience and made the German defence look tardy.

Lahm and Hitzlsperger..beautiful passing between the two of them and then the absolutely glorious finish by Philip in the dying minutes.
He's exceptional, how versatile he is with the attacking dimension he adds to the Mannschaft's firepower, as well as the always reliable man-marking in defence (well today he was a bit shaky). But for saving Germany's ass he deserved the Man of the Match :D

i stayed up to watch the press conference with Jogi and Lahm and somewhere along the way it was explained that the transmission got cut off cos of thunderstorms in the Vienna area (so char, its not exactly st-ar-hu-b's fault as we thought earlier). Yeah, about that- basically I was left staring at a stuck image/a screen saying that there has been a breakdown in transmission for a duration of time long enough for 2 goals to be scored, 1 by each side, and when the images returned momentarily, it was of Lahm running over to the German dugout celebrating and the score changing to 3-2 from 2-2. and then it went blank again -__-. Lucky they showed all the missed bits again ah-albeit without any commentary-..but this was way after the match had finished and there were images of Poldi rallying the crowd and jumping over the barricade to hug the fans :D

Lahm as usual, was very selfless in his acceptance of Man of the Match (even though he DID save Germany's ass, as i've mentioned) and credited everything to the team, when actually he created the play and set up the shot with his Hitzlsperger partnership. I dunno if I've said this before but Lahm and Jogi are the only ones on the team that i can understand in the slightest with my dodgy 2yearsworthoflessonsofgerman cos they speak slowly and clearly. Bless.

i love how before the teams walked out and as the crowd as getting warmed up, the announcer read out the German lineup by first reading the player's team number and then providing their first name, prompting the German fans in the crowd to SHOUT AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS, the last name of the player.

for eg:
"Nummer sieben, Bastian.....SCHWEINSTEIGER!
Nummer elf, Miroslav...KLOSE!
Nummer zwanzig, Lukas...PODOLSKI!"


p.s.: i think its incredible how much more i care about a foreign country's football team than my own country's. I possess no desire to own my country's national team jersey, but i want the new German kit SO bad.
and for once, i know what name i want on the back, no hesitation ( cos all my jerseys are nameless) - Lahm