MitgeTICKERt: Germany vs. England

Hi folks! This is the last ticker of Spox blog in 2008 and the first to be put down entirely in English terms. Today's match is Germany vs. England. But before we start broadcasting let me welcome our English friends giving them a little introduction into the official Football rules: The ball needs to cross the line completely, i.e. with full circumference, for being properly conceded as a goal. So bear in mind – you might need it anytime.

-25: Today's match concludes an extraordinarily successful year for Joachim Löw and his team highlighted by a second place in the European Championships in Austria and Switzerland. Little annotation for our English friends: The European Championships are one of the most significant tournaments in Football competitions and were held in June this year, in spite of the tragic absence of the Three Lions team. We deeply regret.

-20: This friendly match is broadcasted by the ultimate Football TV station ZDF and presented by the unique and absolutely irresistible odd couple: Smoochy Jo and horny Oli! Oli wears a fashionable tie and conjures problems in communication in the German team. Brilliant analaysis. Even Günter would not have done better…

-15: Joachim Löw dispenses with several usual starters such as traditionally injured Michael Ballack and stubborn Torsten Frings. Milky faced Simon and rather brown Jay-Jo will play the defensive role in the midfield. Left defender Phil Slow has not been nominated yet again and will be replaced by Marvin Compper and not, as commonly presumed, by Wulfcastle's MC Shepherd. Löw was also rumoured to change the goal keepers: Timothy Grassland instead of young and exceptionally skilled Rene Eagle. But finally Löw preferred the classic solution. So Eagle will start. But as you can see, we do have great goalies here in Germany. And yes, we know it makes you absolutely envious. And of course, we do enjoy that!

-12: To be honest, Fabio Capello also faces an infinitely long list of failures including Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard. We can only speculate about the motives for their absence: Injury, recreation or just shitting a brick?

-8: So here are the official line-ups:
Germany: Adler - Friedrich, Metzelder, Westermann, Compper - Rolfes, Jones, Schweinsteiger, Trochowski - Gomez, Klose. And now spot the mistake! Yes, it needs to read of course Mertesacker and not Metzelder. But that was the line-up as it was announced on www.dfb.de 20 minutes ago! Probably by Theo Twenty himself. Unbelievable!
England: James - G. Johnson, Upson, Terry, Bridge - Barry, Carrick - Wright-Phillips, Downing - Defoe, Agbonlahor.

-3: So let's listen to the national anthems. And if anyone might wonder while listening to the English one, where you may heard it before: It's a cheap imitation of the official anthem of Liechtenstein. Or the other way round. I am not sure…

1.: The match is kicked off. Really good atmosphere here in Berlin - completely contarious to Hertha matches.

8.: No exciting occurences yet. This, however, is complety identical with Hertha matches. The ultimate highlight in the first eight minutes: Joachim Löw opens a bottle of water.

15.: England shows its only qualities. Agbonlahor makes a crunchy bodycheck against Eagle. But still nothing really inspring here.

20.: Could anybody wake me up if there is something exciting going on?

24.: Upson scores... 0:1! Oh my dear! What an awesome mistake by Rene Eagle: Fly like an Eagle!

26.: Calalmity-James makes a strong save. I really wonder which team commands brillant goalkeepers.

30.: Wright-Phillips is booked. And we are still searching for ourselves. Weak performance by Jogi's lions!

33.: First opportunity for Germany. But Westermann's header misses the goal. It can only get better.

40.: Klose is rumoured to be on the field as well. I can hardly believe!

45./1:/ First half is over. Fortunately! An evil performance by Germany resembling to the bad old Ribbeck times. England leads by 1-0 due to a calamitous mistake by Rene Eagle.

46.: Second half is kicked off. There have been several substitutions: Marin for Jones, Helmes for Klose and Grassland for Eagle.

54.: Nothing's happening here. So let's take a look at the other matches. Turkey leads 4-2 in Austria and Serbia defeated Bulgaria by 6-1. Exciting, isn't it?

58.: The last hope: Podolski - replaces Mario Gomes, the man who wasn't there!

63.:What a huge opportunity for Darren Bent runs towards Grassland and misses the goal.

63.: YESSS! Helmes scores! 1-1! What an odd goal. Calamity-Carson misses the ball and Patrick Helmes shots an empty net goal. Fortunatelly we can stil rely on the unique quality of English keepers.

69.: 1-1. And both teams benefit from outlandish mistakes of the goalies. Seem to copy Hannover vs. Bochum.

75.: A dry game slightly becomes wet. It has started to rain. The quality is still very moderate.

76.: Even Bela Rethy seems to feel deeply bored and teaes "Menschen 2008" with smoochy JBK.

78.: MC Shepherd is in. But I doubt whether he can put some music into this cheerless match.

79.: Wright-Philips hits the post. Lucky Germany!

84.: Terry scores: 1-2! Let's be honest: They deserve it. We play disastrously.

90.: Good news: Additional time: 3 minutes. We have almost survived it!

90./4: The final whistle is blown! Finally! What a sad evening! What a poor performance! Forget about it! Congrats to England and Torsten Frings! Over and out!