There goes a big dream...

And Maradona ended his World Cup managerial challenge in the last 8. Not a bad result for a first time coach. Of course he has all the materials in the world to win the cup, but his weakness is that he is more of a motivator like Benitez rather than a strategist like Mourinho and all the Germans coaches.

His players just didnt know what to do when Germans closed the penetration space with 5 and sometimes 8 defenders. That was hard, and Argies should have done the same at the other end, but most of the time their defenders were left with 3 or 4 the most. With 3 defenders it is impossible to contain the pin point accuracy passes from Ozil, Podolsky and Schweinsteiger. The Germans hit rate was 67%, read, for every 3 shots at goal, 2 will go in. Technically they are very very very competent.

This defensive play was very much similar to the one showed by Brazil, but the Dutch were lucky to get back one earlier and to wrap things up with one from dead ball position. The only goal if the Argies were to score last night was from dead balls. It was just impossible for them to penetrate in the open play.

Technically German was the best team in the world, but like in the last world cup they lost to Italy in the semi because they slowed down the game hoping to go into penalty shoot out. And believe me that was their biggest mistake, Italy took that 10minutes to wrap the game up.

Technically, strong team can give a consistant performance over and over again, but to win a big tournament like world cup where any team can always spring a big surprise, you need another dominant factor, "passion" to stretch the performance further. Just like the match between Nederland and Brazil, a passionate all out game can do miracle.

Well from here onwards, the team that can manage injuries, cards, can solve tactical problems and play passionately can celebrate on the final day.