Germany - Poland 1:0 ......... Puuuuuuuhhhhhh, that was close!

I just can't help it. It is the world cup and I can not escape it. Germany is soccer crazy these days. I have never seen so many German flags on cars and houses before. People talk about nothing else. Yesterday we played Poland. We (my god child and his two little brothers and even the mom) watched the game with all the neighbors in the street. One guy brought a projector from work, the other had a projection screen, a satellite receiver and a long cable, benches, beer and wine and we were ready to go. There were lots of little kids running around all clad in the German colors, laughing, screaming, playing ..... only watching the game when we were getting loud because we missed another chance to score. They immediately came running because they thought we had scored, just to return to their plays disappointed after they learned about the missed shot. The polish team had to win to maintain a minimal chance to advance to the next round, but played very defensively, waiting for a chance to counter. Germany had many chances to score, but failed over and over again. Also the Polish keeper has been outstanding. It was a nail biter and the longer the game lasted the more we got concerned that the Polish team would have one chance to score and actually make it happen. I have to say that the German defense, which had been criticized a lot over the last couple of weeks played really well and took care of all the dangerous situations. After a red card for a Polish defender with 15 minutes to go Germany tried everything to win the game. We have this young player 'Odonka' (he is from Bavaria .... ha ha ha ... just kiddin') who is extremely fast. He created a lot of pressure from the right wing. In the 90st minute we had an amazing chance to score, two players hit the bar and then Odonka scored ...... but no goal. What happened? We could not believe what we saw .... everybody was disappointed, but it became obvious in replay - Ballack was off side. Geez .... we thought that's it. Just a tie against Poland, which would be ok but not really what we wanted..... and then ..... one last attack on the right wing. Odonka sprinting down the line, passing into the middle and ........... ggggggggggggggoooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll (well, I stole that from a Mexican TV commentator). Everybody was jumping up, yelling, laughing ..... everybody was sooo happy. It was just cool! Later on you could here people singing in the neighborhood until the early hours. Wow .....

So what is next? Ecuador and then we shall see what is possible in the next round. Not sure where in Europe I will watch the game, but I will definitely watch it.