great achievers or perennial chokers?

Euro 1992 Final: Going down to the Danes (who did not even qualitfy)

QF World Cup 1998: Beaten by outsiders Croatia

Euro 2000: Sent home by England

2002 World Cup Final: Beaten by Brazil

QF Euro 2004: Tossed out by the Czechs

Semi Final 2006 World Cup: Beaten by Italy

Euro 2008 Final: Beaten by Spain

World Cup Semi Final: Beaten again by Spain

We often marvel at the consistent achievement of the Germans progressing at the big tournaments. But how good is their mental toughness when it comes to the games that really matter? "Yeah but you can never write off the Germans”. Well based on the results above, when it comes to the big games, it just about seems that we can. It was mentioned in the previous post that there are two traditional football powers (Brazil and Italy) that German efficiency becomes exposed. After doing some digging on the FIFA head to head statistics, past results prove to back that claim – see below. So how good are Germany at the business end of the big tournament? Euro 96 and Italia 90 was the last time they won a tournament and even then they scraped through on penalties at the expense of the English. Fantastic at qualifying, great during the Group stages, brilliant at disposing lesser teams, but thier record 
against quality oppostion is inferior, and against Spain it is only slightly better (W 8 D 6 L 7).


Of course I could be left with some serious egg on my face after all this and there are two 
games remainning to be proven wrong. Love it!

Italy                      30 14  9  7  45- 34  

Germany             30  7  9 14  34- 45  

Brazil                   21 12  5  4  39- 24  

Germany             21  4  5 12  24- 39  


I could have included a few more photos of German failures that stretch back into the 80's but 
I think you get the point. 
Still waiting on some tips before announcing the Top 3. Stay tuned.