Host nation Germany have the consolation of winning the third place play off match against Portugal. This is, of course, in addition to the consolation of Lukas Podolski being named young player of the tournament, and the consolation of Miroslav Klose almost certainly winning the golden boot. The night belongs to the young German, Bastian Schweinsteiger. His bold second half performance resulted in two stunning goals by the German left winger, and a sizzling free kick which led to Germany’s other goal. Portugal made a game of it, and scored a consolation goal late on, in the consolation match!

Germany have been sent crashing out of the World Cup on their own turf by Italy in arguably the best match of the tournament so far, and fully worthy of a semi final. Both sides gave everything, but Italy left it incredibly late to score two goals in the last two minutes to send them into the final. The match on the whole was very open, and the nature of Germany’s exit is incredibly dramatic and seemingly harsh. It’s hard to pick out any players as having a bad game, pretty much everyone on the pitch played their part to the best of their ability. Full back Fabio Grosso and Allesandro Del Piero were the two scorers for Italy, in what was an incredible battle of two of the best footballing nations in the world.

Germany left it incredibly late to secure a crucial victory against Poland, with substitute Oliver Neuville scoring the winning goal in the 91st minute, which has pretty much booked Germany's place in the knockout round, and pretty much booked Poland's place on the plane home! You have to feel sorry for Poland conceding such an important goal at such a harsh time, but in truth Germany looked the better side for most of the match.

Germany 4-2 Costa Rica

A capacity crowd of 59,000 gathered in Munich’s Allianz Arena to witness the opening game of the 18th world cup tournament. Germany took on Costa Rica, in what proved to be a thrilling match from start to finish, with Germany proving the eventual winners, by 4 goals to 2, the biggest score line in the opening match of a World Cup. Brilliant strikes from Torsten Frings and Philip Lahm lit up the game in superb style, in what promises to be an exciting world cup.