After Argentina and Spain, count Germany as one of the serious contenders for the World Cup. It’s a sad deal that they are bound to meet Argentina in the quarter finals where they could easily lose - after today’s controlling performance they deserve to go far.

Miroslave Klose took his goal tally to 4 (and now leads the goalscoring charts) and Ballack bossed the game from the midfield but to be honest, Ecuador had a horrible, horrible game. They slipped and fell (literally as well as figuratively) at this final group game - it was almost as if they were too happy to have qualified and didnt really care what happened to them in the second round.

Either that, or they are trying to avoid England and have seen the future and know that England will lose to Sweden. Or they just might fancy their chances against Beckham, Rooney and co.

And, while we’re at it - Klose to Manchester United? Seeing that he got 5 goals in 2002 as well, him and Torres are two players I’d like to see play with Rooney. Klose is also an excellent team player, as shown by his unselfish passes to Podolski (one of them led to Podolski’s first goal in the WC).

[tags]Germany, World Cup 2006, Miroslave Klose[/tags]