Schweinsteiger T-shirts

Uzbek

Although he comes from a dictatorship, Ravshan Irmatov is no authoritarian. While the Argentinians in the first half were spending more and more energy on yelling at the ref, the Uzbek stayed cool. He didn't even book Tevez for his angry gestures.

Mascherano

The Argentinians were complaininga lot, a bit childish that and to no avail. Why bother. The Germans had something to complain about. His name is Mascherano and he got away with a lot. Irmatov is one of those refs who add fouls until it's enough for a card (there was a discussion about this here a week ago) but he didn't add Mascherano's bad deeds from the first half to the ones after the break. He got a clean slate.

lenient

So here was a team with a more (let's be careful) emotional style against a team of Germans. Being lenient, like Irmatov worked well. I don't think it would have worked with two Latin teams.

match

The Argentinians were depending a little too much on Messi perhaps. They came out on the field in the second half all motivated and going for a fast goal. It never happened. Everyone watches Messi and Kaka and all those other famous names, but forgets to see that the German and Dutch teams have great players too. The fact that little boys don't walk around with Schweinsteiger T-shirts doesn't say much.