Euro Trash Day 6: Krauted

Forgive me fair reader. My night took an unexpected detour and suffice it to say I'm in no shape to recap today's futbol action. Let's just say that Croatia has an unexpected win against der Germans, Austria and Poland look destined to not make the knockout round, and your dedicated blogger drank his quota for the night. Updates and whatnot coming in the morning. In the meantime, it's zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
[Updated hangover edition after the jump!]

As my man the Arseblogger would say, “boik!” Lesson learned: do not commit yourself to writing this here Euro Trash and then proceed to get wasted college-style (all that was missing was a beer bong). I’m just proud to have written something coherent last night, and I even managed to upload a pic!

Croatia 2, Germany 1
Enough about my misadventures, let’s talk about Germany and their misadventures. Yesterday we had the first true shock upset of the Euros (the Netherlanders beating Italy 3-0 was shocking, but not really an upset). Because every comment about Germany requires at least one WWII/Nazi analogy, it was clear that the blitzkrieg failed. Croatia simply outplayed a German squad who many thought were the favorites to win Euro 2008. Just to rub a little bit more salt in England’s still-fresh wounds, coach Slaven Bilic said the win over Germany was even better than the victory at Wemberly that got Croatia into the Euros.

Germany’s coach Joachim Loew, in turn, was pretty honest about his team’s deficiencies: “Overall we were a weak team. We didn't manage to play through the midfield, we played too many high balls, our game off the ball was bad, we did not run the combinations, and precision was lacking.” It truly was shocking how terrible Ballack and Schweinsteiger were yesterday. Perhaps it was the Austrian humidity, or just forgetting to show up for a big game. The Germans should be able to recover with a win against a pretty dire Austria, but they are suddenly looking fairly flawed and beatable.

Croatia, in turn, has already qualified to reach the quarterfinals and only needs a tie or better against Poland (who look pretty dire too) to take the top seed from their group. A lot of talk before the tournament about how Croatia would miss Eduardo (granted, most of that talk from us Gooners). But much talk today about how Bilic re-figured his lineup yesterday and how Croatia were able to pass and run circles around Germany. Time to officially take the darkhorse tag off of Croatia? Affirmed.

Austria 1, Poland 1 The first result for a home nation, but really these two teams look terrible. If the wheels completely fall off of Germany, there’s a slight chance that either Austria or Poland could advance. Not very likely though. Plus, this match saw the UF debut of a pic of that Austrian pervert who locked his secret family in the basement. Seriously, that picture gives me the shivers.

Other news
Aston Villa holding out for more cash for Gareth Barry’s inevitable transfer to Liverpool
Polish politician threatens to yank Podolski's non-existent Polish passport.
Yanks-Abroad is off the Bradley bandwagon. UF wonders if the U.S. can get Hiddink now?
Female amateur (we think) soccer player suspended for kicking an opponent. It's news because she's an Australian MP!
USWNT appearing on Price is Right!