Day 27 - Brazil v Germany

Pre-Match Thoughts
The World Cup seems to be in danger of fizzling out after little in the way of excitement in the quarter-finals, the Dutch sneaking through on pens excepted.

Brazil have been hit with Neymar cracking his back, though his impact against Colombia was minimal in any case. For them, it's an issue of whether they can handle the pressure having had to scrape past in their last two games, with only one clean sheet out of five. There's plenty of potential for goals against this team.

Whether Germany can manage it depends on their midfield. Once again, they've stuck Klose up top, despite him being well off the pace against the French. He may, perhaps, have more luck against a less well organised back line.

Prediction: 1-1 after 120 minutes, Germany to win on penalties.

First Half
Well... erm... not sure what you can say about that 45 minutes.

The Germans set themselves up perfectly and all the concerns about the Brazil team expressed thus far have finally come to fruition. They were hopeless and Germany took full advantage - most notably when Klose was able to find the time and space to become the top scorer in World Cup Finals history.

But five??! Did anyone predict that, anywhere? They've managed to make everything click that didn't quite against Algeria and France, pressing hard, playing a brilliant short passing game and showing total ruthlessness.

Worth noting Brazil's David Luiz should have been sent off for one of two elbows he threw out.

Second Half
Naturally, nothing could live quite up to that. Yet there were chances galore, with Neur in the German goal having to make some good saves. The slight kamikaze approach from Brazil allowed the ruthless Germans to grab another two goals.

It could have been more, but for Ozil's hopeless finishing. From that, Brazil went up the other end to score the most pointless goal all summer.

The fallout from this game could be felt for while to come. Brazil have seemed on the verge of a bad defeat, but nothing on this level. It'll be interesting to see where they go from here.

Memory of Another 7-1
Back in the Spring of 2007, I had a camera shoved down my gob at hospital, which required sedation. A friend, let's call them "Ricky", got me home and after buying me a sausage roll before leaving me to my drug-addled state. That night, Manchester United played a very good Roma side and won 7-1, leading me to ring my dad to check I wasn't tripping out or something.