Scheise, that was close...

Mein gott that match was tense at times. Germany are starting to play eerily similar football to England- pointless long balls, feeble strikers, struggling to beat lesser opposition. I bet all you Young England patriotic types are wishing you'd got behind the German Fatherland from the start! Still, a wonder strike from Ballack sealed strüdel apocalypse for those Austrian lads. I did however, miss the goal as I'd popped out to do a little shopping...

So now it's Ronaldo's greased hords who stand between us and the semi finals. Scolari played a reserve team of civil servants and schoolchildren against Switzerland, so the real team are bound to be ready for action. I call upon all British football fans to cast aside old rivalries and back the Deutsch in this crunch game. Germany have literally morphed into England- skillful at times but let down by major but endearingly human physical and mental flaws. What's more Angela Merkel looks just like Delia Smith, and Joachim Löw looks like a more metrosexual version of Sandy from the OC. If that's not a good reason to trade in your feeble UK passport for a German one I don't know what is...

Anyway, a brief update on my German cultural education thus far. Literature- in my local German bookstore I discovered their version of Tintin & Snowy is called Tim and Struppi. The name Tim seems a little ordinary don't you think, for an ageless, asexual, white-supremacist vigilante? "Boy reporter" my arse- everyone knows he spends most of his time taking opium, arsing around in pyramids and shooting foreigners. A very un-German hero...