Category Archives: Euro 2012 – Germany

Which Mario Balotelli for Euro 2012 semifinal Italy vs Germany 2-1? A Image Content Analysis

Posted on by • Posted in Country - Italy, Euro 2012, Euro 2012 - Germany, Euro 2012 - Italy, Rep Issue - Image Content Analysis, Rep Issue -Media Impact Analysis • Tagged , , , , • Leave a comment

We have now the two finalists of football UEFA Euro 2012: Spain vs Italy.

Spain was a favorite team to reach the final, and got the ticket in the penalty series against Portugal (0-0, penlaties 4-2).

Italy defeated favorite Germany in the other semifinal. This was an excellent football match, with one outstanding star: Mario Balotelli. He scored the goals for Italy.

Telling you that our image content analysis finds that Mario Balotelli is the main reference in the post-game media coverage is really not a big deal.

But we can try to provide relevant insights for sport business and branding by applying once more media coverage analysis to Euro 2012 matches, as we have done in several other entries in this blog.

The task we assume in this post is to show you which is the Mario Balotelli portrayed by the media after his outstanding sport performance. The answer to this question is less evident, as the controversial Italian star provided a lot of raw material for photographers and press, and journalists are obliged to pick just one of the images to include in the news article.

The semifinals and the final of top football championships like FIFA World Cup., UEFA Champions League and UEFA Euro create decissive branding impact in the football stars outperforming in these events. Massive media coverage create lasting images associated to the football stars. This creates value that will be translated into much more expensive sponsorship deals. Images also contribute to create the brand profile of the stars.

As explained, we have a lot of salient images about Mario Balotelli vs Germany: an excellent head first goal, a perfetly executed second goal with a powerful shot, a yellow card because mario stripped off the shirt after the second goal, showing a defiant attitude with a ripped torso, images of celebration, and naive images of Mario embrassing moved mum.

Our analysis has been made by monitoring post game media coverage of Italy Vs Germany in newspapers in Britain and Spain. We have applied as in the previous cases image content analysis.

Our results.

#1 Image of the match: Hulk Balotelli with shirless torso: 20.3% of all images.

#2 Image of the match: Mario celebrating with team: 16.1% of all images

#3 Image of the match: First head goal: 14.7% of all images

#4 Image of the match: Mario Balotelli celebrating first goal: 12.5%

#5 Image of the match: Mario Balotelli in action during the match: 12%

#6 Image of the match: shirtless Balotelli joined by teammates to celebrate second goal: 11.1%

The figure below shows the distribution of all post game news photos about Mario Balotelli’s performance in Intaly vs Germany Euro 2012 semifinal.

UEFA Euro 2012 Quarter Finals: Spain, Germany, Portugal and Italy. Winning Teams, Winning Stars. Media Coverage Analysis

Posted on by • Posted in Euro 2012, Euro 2012 - Czech Republic, Euro 2012 - England, Euro 2012 - France, Euro 2012 - Germany, Euro 2012 - Greece, Euro 2012 - Italy, Euro 2012 - Portugal, Euro 2012 - Spain, Football, Rep Issue - Image Content Analysis, Rep Issue - News Content Analysis, Rep Issue -Media Impact Analysis • Tagged , , , , • 2 Comments

We continue our series about media impact analysis of football UEFA Euro 2012 championship.

Quarter finals results

Last eight teams were confronted in a single knockout round, in quarter finals, to determine the last four semifinalists.

Games were played between 21 and 24 June 2012.

Teams and results were:

Portugal – Czech Republic 1-0 (Cristiano Ronaldo)

Germany – Greece 4-2 (Lahm, Khedira, Klose, Reus // Samaras, Salpigidis)

Spain- France 2-0 (2 Xabi Alonso)

Italy – France 0-0 (penalties 4-2).

So, the semifinals of the tournament are:

Portugal Vs Spain

Germany Vs Italy

Media value in the final stages of the competition

It’s time for glory for the teams reaching the final stages of the competition. There are less and less teams competing, there is much more now at stake. Media coverage increases and focusses in the remaining teams and players. Just three big games to play (two semifinals and the final), but they have the power to create new winning and prestigious teams, and launching new heroes of football, or confirming and strengthening the established football stars.

Media impact measurement of the decissive matches provide us the information about how big is the reward that teams and players will receive from sport success and which players will win the more after each game. As explained in previous posts, the massive media coverage that some football players are receiving in Euro 2012 is translated into increased media value. Football media value is an almost direct mesure of future commercial power of players of football stars.

The crucial games are still ahead. But quarter finals were already a very important step and have their own impact in terms of media value.

Comparative media impact analysis

We propose in this post a different analysis concerning post game media coverage of games.

We show this time comparative analysis of all four games. We will show also team Vs Individual media impact.

We use as in all previous posts about Euro 2012 media impact metrics based in image content analysis of photos published in newspapers the day after each game.

We have chosen news published in British media, except for the match Italy Vs England. In order to avoid media bias we have chosen media coverage in Spanish newspapers for Italy vs England.

We present as first result the distribution of media coverage received by each team. In the following figure, we present the share reached by all eight teams in quater finals. Green bars refer to qualified teams to the semifinals. Red bars correspond to eliminated teams.

Winning teams control between 64% adn 72% of all post game media coverage. Losing teams receive between 36% and 28% of the post game media attention.

According to our results, the game with the highest orientation towards the winning team was Portugal Vs Czech Republic. 71.6% of all post game coverage about the match turned in favour of players from Portugal. Second team most massivelly followed was Germany (68%). Winners Spain and Italy shared media space with losers France and England.

The increased attention in favour to Portugal reflects that the game was seen as very unbalanced and that the Czech Republic players did not deserve much attention because of their lack of sport performance. It also reflects the increased expectations created by Portugal. At the beginning of the competition, Portugal was just the seventh favorite team to win the championship, according to Bwin odds. After the end of the group stage, Portugal jumped to third favorite, ahead of other prestigious teams in the quater finals (all teams that were eventually eliminated, plus Italy).

Team Vs individual stars media impact

In this section we proceed to the analysis of the media coverage given to each match, by focusing the attention to the place given to individual stars versus team success.

We have applied the following strategy. Applying image content analysis, we have distinguished the images showing just one player (or the coach) to photos showing several team players, tipically celebrating a goal or the qualification for the next round. This analysis allow us to study how do media perceive the sources of the success of the team: individual versus collective contributions. Of course, media choices are strongly determined by the actual development of the match. There are matches with clear individual heroes who capture almost all media glory, while in other cases there are more than one heroe or key protagonists of the match are unclear.

Based on the results of the four games, we should expect  a huge individual media coverage for Spain (Xabi Alonso scored all two goals), and Portugal (Cristiano Ronaldo scored the only decissive goal, he had other clear scoring opportunities). As for the other two winning teams, we count with the extreme cases. We have a lot of protagonists in Germany, as there are four different scorers, and even the man of the match was another player, Mesut Özil. As for Italy, we have no clear heroes, as there were no scorers during the regular time. In the penalty series, Nocerino missed his shot, goalkeeper Buffon just blocked one penalty and Pirlo reached protagonism using an unusual soft shot (Panenka style). Andrea Pirlo became eventually the Man of the match.

We present our empirical results in the following four figures.

We find that Portugal is the team were media coverage is more oriented to individual players, with 48% of all images about the match. The vast majority of them show Cristiano Ronaldo as protagonist.

We have discussed in some previous posts the relevance of Euro 2012 for CR7 individual interests. According to our results, Leo Messi is the most valuable player of the season in terms of media value (see the post about Football media valur report 2012). In the last four seasons, the most valuable player by media value got thereafter the Ballon d’Or. Our prediction is thus that Leo Messi will win the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2013… except if Cristiano Ronaldo continue to emerge as the decissive team leader and Portugal reached the final or even win the title. In any case, we can confirm that the quarter finals had an excellent positive impact for Cristiano Ronaldo.

As expected, second team more oriented to individual post game reward is Spain. Individual images refer mainly to Xabi Alonso. Individual share is 35% of all news. This is quite less that the share reached by Cristiano Ronaldo (48%).

As for the other two winning teams, we find that individual images reach 22% value for Italy, and a mere 14% share for Germany. Images explaining Germany outstanding performance against Greece is reflected in collective images showing the strength of the group.

(more content coming)

Top Teams in Euro 2012 Group Stage. Media Views in Germany, Britain, Italy

Posted on by • Posted in Euro 2012, Euro 2012 - England, Euro 2012 - France, Euro 2012 - Germany, Euro 2012 - Italy, Euro 2012 - Spain, Football, Rep Issue - Image Content Analysis, Rep Issue - Media Bias, Rep Issue -Media Impact Analysis, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

We propose a new analysis about media impact of football Euro 2012, after our series about individual matches analysis (see some posts below, or click in ‘Categories’ section, under ‘Euro 2012′).

Now we conduct the analysis of the media coverage given to this sporting event since its start by 8 June 2012, till the end of the Group stage, by 20 June 2012.

For those not familiar with this sport event, UEFA Euro 2012 is the major football (soccer) event in Europe at national team level. It takes place every four years, and it takes place now as final tournament, in Poland and Ukraine.

There are 16 teams playing in this final tournament in Poland and Ukraine. There is a group stage each one with four teams. Two of them classify for the knock-out stages (quater, semis and final).

The teams qualified for the knock-out stage are:

Group A: Czech Republic, Greece.

Group B: Germany, Portugal.

Group C: Spain, Italy.

Group D: England, France.

Powerful football teams eliminated: Netherlands, Sweden, Russia, Croatia, and local teams Poland and Ukraine.

Sport mega events and place branding

The event receives massive media attention in Europe, and some broadcasting and media coverage outside Europe in countries with strong football tradition and fan base.

Organizing and hosting sport mega events plays a major role as city and country branding and rebranding tool. This is particularly the case for places with rather low international visibility or a poor brand profile: mega events can create a lasting positive effect in city and country brand… if things evolve correctly. Bad news during mega events can reach the status of afwul devastating news for the brand equity of organizing places.

We observed one of such incidents during this Euro 2012 that become a nightmare for country organizers and PR team: highly rival countries Poland and Russia played a decissive match, the day of Russia Day, to be played in Warsaw. Introduction went directly to natural conclusion: there were a number of violent clashes between hoolingans from both parties just beneath the stadium, with the presence of international press.

We proposed a flash media impact measurement of the clashes, that you can access here: Image Impact for Poland of Clashes Between Polish and Russian Fans. This was bad news for Poland branding.

The other cases that we have explored in this blog about Euro 2012 are the identification of top stars of a singular match based in the post game analysis of the images shown by the newspapers about the game. In some cases we have also proceed into a pre-game media coverage. As said, if interested, you can access the analysis of a particular team by chosing it in the ‘Euro 2012′ chapter of the ‘Categories’ section.

Now we study how the initial Group stage has been ‘viewed’ by the media in different countries.

We have conducted the analysis using the same approach applied in all previous cases about Euro 2012: through image content analysis of photos of news about the Euro 2012.

We count with a number of relevant items concerning media coverage given in each country, like the extent of images about violence and protests, the presence of official logos and sponsors, or images about fans, stadia and city views. We will eventually show the results about these elements in a future post in this blog.

Here in this post we restrict the analysis to the media coverage given in each country to each one of the 16 competing teams, in news published by local media during the initial group stage, between 8 and 20 June 2012.

Media coverage and sport business

We have monitored media coverage given in three big countries in Europe in terms of population, economic power and football fan base and tradition: Germany, Britain and Italy. Teams from all these three countries compete in the tournament, and all three have qualified for the knock-out stage of the competition.

We have shown in a previous post that our research center, MRI Universidad de Navarra publishes an annual report about media value in football, based basically in the same approach shown here: rankings are based in media coverage received by football players and teams during the season.

This is the post concerning the basic results about season 2011/12.

Football Media Value Report 2012

The figure below shows the list of top 10 football players 2012. Seven of them are currenly playing at UEFA Euro 2012.

As explained in that post, rankings about media value in sports are not just a matter of curiosity. It provides a relevant information in sport business, as media value of players and teams is the best tool to predict their commercial power.

In this sense, the media coverage that football players are receiving thanks to their sport performance and the success of their team has also direct implications in footballers’ media value, that stay after the competition ends.

As explained in the mentioned post about Football media value report, we find that in the last four seasons, top football player by media value according to MRI Universidad de Navarra eventually received afterwards the FIFA Ballon d’Or. Argentinian star Messi (FC Barcelona) is the most valuable player of the season. But number two is Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid). The Portuguese star is receiving tremendous media exposure thanks to his decissive contribution to team success. Added media value by Cristiano Ronaldo could have a crucial influence in changing the trend observed these last four seasons and be awarded as top footballer of the year.

Thus, media coverage analysis of Euro 2012 provides information relevant not only for football fans, but again for professionals and people interested in sport business.

Local media coverage

What is the expected media behaviour in a country concerning the coverage of a sport event where your national team is taking part? Of course, we expect a strong bias towards the local team, and eventually also towards direct rivals of the local team.

Finding this result will then not be a surprise, nor a very relevant result. But again, as always, things become more interesting and useful if we are interested in knowing the ‘how much’ about this bias: how much media attention takes the local team in the news and how much space is left to the other 15 teams? And, excluding media coverage provided to local team, which teams are most followed by the media in the different countries? Do all countries follow a common path? Finally, what is the picture emerging from the sum of individual biased views?

Let’s go for empirical answers based in the analysis of the case Euro 2012 for media in Germany, Britain and Italy.

Euro 2012 media coverage in Germany

We show first results about media coverage in Germany.

We present in the figure below the media coverage given to all 16 participating teams by German press. Values refer to the percentual share of the total media attention received by each team.

We have the first answer concerning the extent of media bias towards local team, applied to Germany: German team is the reference of one third of all images about the Euro 2012. This is more than three times than media coverage given to the secong team in the list. This is Spain, with 10% of all images. Among top 5 teams we find two rivals in Group B: Netherlands and Denmark. There was apparently less media attention to Portugal, the other team in Group B. We also find 6 teams qualified for next round among top 9 teams by media impact in Germany.

Media coverage in Britain

We move now to the analysis of media coverage given by British media.

There is almost exactly the same pattern in terms of media bias in Britain: media attention to local team reaches some one third of all photos included in news about the Euro 2012 by British media.

As for the teams behind, we find also here that the main reference is Spanish team, the current title holder and one of the leading favorites to win the championship. Quite surprisingly, we do not find a substantial increase of media exposure of England rival teams (France, 6th; Sweden and Ukraine, 14th and 15th). Media attention is focussed in top traditional football teams: Spain, Italy, France, Netherlands, Germany.

Media coverage in Italy

Our third case is news coverage in Italy.

Same story, once again. Bias towards local team is translated into a media coverage of slighly more than one third of total media coverage. Rival team Spain takes again leading positions, but the second place is taken by England. Portugal takes a privileged position in comparison with media in other countries. Almost all attention is focussed in Portuguese mega star Cristiano Ronaldo. Team rivals (Ireland, Croatia) receive a higher media exposure in Italy than in the other countries.

Comparative media coverage

We have observed some commonalities among the three cases selected. They can emerge more easily if we merge the three figures in one, as shown in the figure below.

We confirm the presence of an almost same image in terms of covering the local team. In all three countries media choose Spain as the leading reference. We find more variability concerning media coverage given to other teams. For instance, we find that Italy provides smaller media attention to Netherlands than in the other countries. France and Portugal are underrepresented in German press.

Among teams that reached the final eight teams, we find low media attention towards Czech Republic and Portugal. They meet together in quarter finals.

Combined media impact Euro 2012 Group stage

Now, the next step is to derive the combined result emerging from media coverage given in all three countries. Results are established by a simple average of the individual results, excluding media coverage given to local teams.

Results are purely illustrative and do no reflect a systematic and true ranking of media impact of teams. We have chosen just news from three countries. Even if they are big markets, the representativeness of the results requires to include Spain, Netherlands and eventually some other countries.

But the results we show below reach the goal we are looking for. They show a non representative but informative ranking about global media coverage received by each one of the 16 participating teams.

We find that the top ranked country in this fist stage of the competition is Spain, followed by England and France. Quite surprisingly, we find low valuations for the German team (just seventh position), even if they are the unique team obtaining three wins and being considered one of the favorite teams of the competition. We find that seven qualified teams appear among top eight teams by global media impact. This confirm as always in all our analysis the direct relationship between sport performance and media impact. This is also why media impact leads to commercial power.

The other conclusion behind the results of this ranking is that we confirm once more this so surprising and appealing result relying in our analysis of sport media value: national media coverage is always strongly biased towards local readers’ interests. But the sum of all strongly biased views, by adding news coverage from different countries, creates an emerging picture which progressively eliminates biases. The elimination of bias can be measured by the increase of the relationship between global media impact and sport performance, as this link is lower at national level.

This is also telling us that the calculation of rankings of media impact about brands that are global, like sport brands, requires taking measurements from all over the world; otherwise, result will be strongly biased and irrelevant. This is what we do in our reports and rankings about media value of football teams and athletes.

(more content coming)

Stars of Germany Vs Netherlands 2-1 Euro 2012 – Gómez, van Persie. Media Coverage Analysis

Posted on by • Posted in Euro 2012, Euro 2012 - Germany, Euro 2012 - Netherlands, Rep Issue -Media Impact Analysis • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , • 2 Comments

We continue with our series media impact analysis of Euro 2012 football matches.

We study in this post the match Germany Vs Netherlands, played in 13 June 2012.

Contents of this post:

1. Pre Game media attention to stars of Germany and Netherlands

2. Legends and controversies of Germany Vs Netherlands

3. The stars of Germany Vs Netherlands 2-1 Euro 2012. Photo gallery (available). Media impact analysis (coming)

4. Annex: Statistics of the match

5. Annex: Videos Germany vs Netherlands Highlights, reactions and press conferences

6. Annex: Tactics analysis of Germany Vs Netherlands 2-1 Euro 2012.

 ___

Another great classic in European football.

Germany won its first match against Portugal. The Netherlands lost 1-0 against Denmark, being this the first big surprise of the championship. This means that Netherlands needs a victory against archrival Germany in order to maintain chances of classification for the next round.

According to online betting firms, the game will be very balanced, with Germany somehow favorite. It receives 40% of implicit chances of winning the match, and 28% chances for a draw. Thus, Netherlands is assigned with 32% of chances to reach its necessary win. We expect a very open and unpredictable result.

As in some other previous cases, we present first some results about media coverage of this match before to it is played. Once the game is played, we will come back in this post with additional information concerning the post-match media impact.

We have chosen news in English published during the day of the match and the day before. As in all other cases in this series about the Euro 2012, we apply the technique of measurement through the photos published in the newspapers.

According to our results, newspapers in English provide much more space and images to Dutch players in the photo news, as players from Netherlands represent 58% of all image content about the preview of the match Germany Vs Netherlands. There is just 42% of the images oriented to German team.

Who are the stars the the media expect to appear in this exciting game full of top footballers?

According to our results, the leading media reference of the match is not a player. It’s the coach from The Netherlands, Bert van Marwijk. He appears in 14.1% of all images about the preview of the game. Second media reference is Mario Gómez, from Germany with 12.2% images. He was the hero of the first match, as he scored the unique goal of the match. We find the German coach in third position, Joachim Löw, with 10.5%.

This is a common result. Sport managers reach the peak in terms of media coverage just before the match, and may become like in this case the main media reference of the team, above football players stars. As we have shown in the post-game media analysis of other games of the Euro 2012, coaches rarely appear among top 10 stars of the game. If they appear, they never take top positions (except in cases of bold controversies created by trainers with big media power).

According to our results, we find that media expect as stars in the German side Mario Gómez, LuKas Podolski and Bastian Schweinsteiger. As for the Dutch camp, media expect as stars for the match Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder and Robin van Persie. This means that media still perceive Robben as leader of Netherlands team.

Legends and controversies of Germany Vs Netherlands

Germany has played more than 30 official matches against Netherlands. Some of them as crucial as the final of FIFA World Cup 1974.

Every new match Germany Vs Netherlands is an occasion to remember the best moments and the controversies linked to this classical sport rivalry. See for instance a good article about the sport rivalry between two national football teams (‘Euro 2012: Germany’s rivalry with England is nothing compared to the Netherlands’, The Independent, 13 June 2012), or background of the historic rivalry in UEFA site (‘Dutch and Germans reunited in Kharkiv’, UEFA, 6 January 2012) Which are the main references chosen by the media? The answer provides a way to measure what media consider the legendary games.

We use again the technique of monitoring photos from media during the last day.

Our results say that the top legend is Johan Cruyff 1974. It selected in 17.1% of all cases.

Second moment most printed in the news is the controversy during the Wolrd Cup 1990, affecting Rudi Völler (Germany) and Frank Rijkaard). There were some episodes of aggressions before and after receiving both players a red card. In between Rijkaard spitted into Völler. This ‘spitting’ moment is the photo that captures all the controversy and is reporduced in many newspapers. As it is somehow disgusting, we show intead another cpation of this game. This controversy is present in 14.5% photos of past Germany Vs Netherlands game.

This is how the episode is explained in Völlers biography in Wikipedia:

He was a member of the team that won the 1990 World Cup. He scored 3 times in the tournament, including one goal in a 4–1 win over Yugoslavia, and then found the net twice against the United Arab Emirates in a 5–1 win. During the second-round game against Holland, Völler and Dutch player Frank Rijkaard were sent off the field after a spitting incident. Völler came back to play and star for Germany in both the semi-final and final, and he was the player brought down in the penalty area by an Argentinian defender, leading to Andreas Brehme’s penalty kick in the final. Germany ended up winning the match 1–0.

The unsavoury incident that took place during the second-round match with Holland started when Rijkaard was booked for a bad tackle on Völler. As Rijkaard took up position for the free kick, he spat in Völler’s hair. Völler complained to the referee and was booked as well. From the resulting free kick, Völler dived to avoid a collision with Dutch Keeper Hans van Breukelen, although it did also look as if he dived for a penalty. Van Breukelen was angry at this, but Rijkaard again confronted Völler by twisting his ear and stamping on his foot. Both Völler and Rijkaard were sent off, but Rijkaard again spat in Völler’s hair as they left the pitch and was rumoured to have repeated this on the touchline. Rijkaard later stated that it was his fault: “That day I was wrong. There was no insult. I always had much respect for Rudi Völler. But I went berserk when I saw that red card. I talked to him after the match and I apologized. I’m very happy that he accepted. I have no bad feeling about him now. We even posed for a very funny advert together, years after.” (Rudi Völler, Wikipedia)

If you wish you can watch a video with comments and analysis in English about that match full of controversies and unfair behaviour

Fourth most remembered moment is the Wold Cup final 1974 Germany Vs Netherlands, won by Germany 2-1, showing Franz Beckenbauer, in 10.4% cases.

The other legendary players and moments in this rivarly, as remembered in the preview of Euro 2012 game are:

5. Gerd Müller, 6.6%. German scorer in FIFA World Cup 1974.

6. Ronald Koeman, Netherlands, 3.9%. Euro 1988

7. Bastian Schweinsteiger, Germany. 3.9%. Euro 2004

8. Jürgen Klinsmann, Germany. 3.9% 1992, 1996

The stars of Germany Vs Netherlands 2-1 Euro 2012

We will provide later today the results concerning the post-game media impact of the match.

Germany got and advance of two goals thanks to top striker Mario Gómez (now top scorer of the tournament with three goals, as Alan Dzagoev from Russia). Robina van Persie reduced distances in the second half, but it was not enough. Germany is qualified for the quarter finals, and the Netherlands havde only a small chance to get classified.

Of course, Mario Gómez was named the man of the match.

You can access here to the story of the match as how it was commented live by UEFA: Live Commentary of Germany vs Netherlands Euro 2012, UEFA.com

Source of the images of the match (El País, 13 June 2012)

Mario Gómez scoring 1-0

mario Gómez scoring 2-0

Robin van Persie scoring final 2-1

Annex: Lineups and Statistics of the match

1
Stekelenburg Maarten Stekelenburg(GK)
1
Neuer Manuel Neuer (GK)
2
Van der Wiel Gregory van der Wiel
5
Hummels Mats Hummels
3
Heitinga John Heitinga
6
Khedira Sami Khedira
4
Mathijsen Joris Mathijsen
7
Schweinsteiger Bastian Schweinsteiger
6
Van Bommel Mark van Bommel (C)
Substitution46
 8
Özil Mesut Özil
Substitution81
8
N. de Jong Nigel de Jong
Yellow Card80
 10
Podolski Lukas Podolski
10
Sneijder Wesley Sneijder
13
T. Müller Thomas Müller
Substitution90+2
11
Robben Arjen Robben
Substitution83
 14
Badstuber Holger Badstuber
15
Willems Jetro Willems
Yellow Card90
 16
Lahm Philipp Lahm (C)
16
Van Persie Robin van Persie
Goal73
 20
Boateng Jérôme Boateng
Yellow Card87
20
Afellay Ibrahim Afellay
Substitution46
 23
Gomez Mario Gomez
Goal24
Goal38
Substitution72

Substitutes
12
Vorm Michel Vorm (GK)
12
Wiese Tim Wiese (GK)
22
Krul Tim Krul (GK)
22
Zieler Ron-Robert Zieler (GK)
5
Bouma Wilfred Bouma
2
Gündoğan İlkay Gündoğan
7
Kuyt Dirk Kuyt
Substitution83
 3
Schmelzer Marcel Schmelzer
9
Huntelaar Klaas-Jan Huntelaar
Substitution46
 4
Höwedes Benedikt Höwedes
13
Vlaar Ron Vlaar
9
Schürrle André Schürrle
14
Schaars Stijn Schaars
11
Klose Miroslav Klose
Substitution72
17
Strootman Kevin Strootman
15
Bender Lars Bender
Substitution90+2
18
L. de Jong Luuk de Jong
17
Mertesacker Per Mertesacker
19
Narsingh Luciano Narsingh
18
Kroos Toni Kroos
Substitution81
21
Boulahrouz Khalid Boulahrouz
19
Götze Mario Götze
23
Van der Vaart Rafael van der Vaart
Substitution46
 21
Reus Marco Reus

Coach
Bert van Marwijk (NED) Joachim Löw (GER)

Referee
Jonas Eriksson (SWE)

Source: UEFA.com

Netherlands Germany
1
 Goals scored
2
52
 Possession (%)
48
13
 Total attempts
12
6
 Attempts on target
9
7
 Attempts off target
3
0
 Attempts blocked
0
0
 Attempts against woodwork
1
6
 Corners
5
1
 Offsides
4
2
 Yellow cards
1
0
 Red cards
0
11
 Fouls committed
7
7
 Fouls suffered
11

Annex: Videos Germany vs Netherlands Highlights

Here, you can access to official videos by UEFA, at UEFA.com.

1. Match highlights with all goals Duration, 40 seconds. Comments in English. Watch here Netherlands – Germany highlights.

2. Auf Deutsch. In German. Match highlights with all goals Duration, 40 seconds. Watch here. ’Höhepunkte Niederlande – Deutschland’.

3. Auf Deutsch. In German. Post game press Conference, coach Joachim Löw. Duration, 16 minutes. Pressekonferenz nach dem Spiel: NED – GER.

4. Auf Deutsch. In German. Post game interviews to Bastian Schweinsteiger and Holger Badstuber. Duration: 1:44 minutes. NED – GER Stimmen.

5. In English. Post game interviews to Mark van Bommel and Arjen Robben. Duration: 1:37. NED – GER Reaction

6. In English. Post game press Conference, German coach Joachim Löw. Duration, 16 minutes. Post-match press conference: NED – GER

7. In English. Post game press Conference, Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk. Duration, 9 minutes. Post-match press conference: NED – GER

Annex: Tactics analysis of Germany Vs Netherlands 2-1 Euro 2012

We select some elements of the tactics analysis of the match provided by Zonnalmarking.net. You can access to full analyis here: ‘Germany 2-1 Holland: German flexibility outwits the static Dutch midfield’, Zonalmarking.net, 14 June 2012.

Quotations from their analysis:

Germany were much the better side here – they were more comfortable on the ball, their movement was better and they played at a quicker tempo. It was something of a surprise to see them hanging on towards the end of the game, having been so superior in the first half.

(…)

Central midfield 

This game was all about the midfield, and the contrast between the two systems. Holland were very structured – Nigel de Jong was retained alongside Mark van Bommel, while Wesley Sneijder stayed high up the pitch, more like a second striker than an attacking midfielder. Holland were effectively outnumbered 3 v 2 in the middle, but this wasn’t necessarily a problem if they sat deep, kept their positions, and forced Germany wide.

Holland’s trouble inevitably started from the movement of the fabulous Mesut Ozil, who drifted towards the right of the pitch in the first half, combining with Muller. As the deepest-lying Dutch midfielder, de Jong generally followed him – which left Mark van Bommel covering a large space of the pitch in front of the Dutch defence.

(…)

Conclusion 

This was the perfect demonstration of how a flexible midfield duo can outwit the opposition. Germany were brave, and risked being caught on the break by leaving Sneijder free between the lines, but the alternate forward runs from Schweinsteiger and Khedira confused van Bommel, while de Jong was distracted by Ozil’s usual selfless off-the-ball movement to the flanks.

In more general terms, this was all about cohesion. Germany did everything together – they pressed as a unit, defended as a unit, and broke through with integrated movement and clever passing. Holland relied on individuals, while the defensive shape of the side was poor – quite damning, considering van Marwijk went for the defensive option of two holding midfielders. Germany aren’t mathematically through, Holland aren’t mathematically eliminated, and this was only a one-goal win, but the difference in quality was huge.

Stars of Germany Vs Portugal 1-0 Euro 2012 Game 1 – Mario Gómez, Cristiano Ronaldo

Posted on by • Posted in Euro 2012 - Germany, Euro 2012 - Portugal • Tagged , , , , • Leave a comment

Another post in our series about the media impact analysis of Euro 2012 matches.

Now we analyse the match played 9 June 2012 in Group B, Germany Vs Portugal.

NOTE: You may be also interested in our post about Germany Vs Netherlands analysis (see it here).

Final result was 1-0 for Germany. The goal was scored by Mario Gómez, in minute 72. According to analysts, Germany did not play a good match and Portugal had some chances to obtain a better result. Mesut Özil was named by UEFA the Man of the match.

Even if Portugal is not one of the big favorites to win the championship, this team counts with the biggest football star in the tournament, Real Madrid player Cristiano Ronaldo.

According to our measurements, published in our ‘Football Media Value Report 2012′, Cristiano Ronaldo is the second most valuable player in the world in terms of global media impact during the season 2011/12, only behind FC Barcelona mega star Leo Messi.

You can check below the list of top 10 players in the world by media value, according to our estimations (you can find more about the Football Media Value Report 2012 in a previous post in this blog (see here).

This means that Cristiano Ronaldo is the leading media star in the Euro 2012, as Leo Messi is from Argentina. There are another six players playing in the Euro 2012 among world top 10: Xavi (Spain), Rooney (England), Ibrahimovic (Sweden), Van Persie (The Netherlands), Inesta (Spain) and Terry (England).

We have monitored the share of photos in news after the match, as in previous posts. We have selected news in English.

We show first the distribution of global media attention to both teams, as shown in the figure below. We find that post game media attention was oriented towards players from Germany, the winning team. germany received 60% of all image news.

Concerning the individual ranking, we find that the main star of the game was again the scorer Mario Gómez, with 19.2% of all photo news about the game. He is tied in first position by Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo.

Both strikers dominate completely post-game media attention, as third player receives just 5.7% mentions in photos. This is Jerome Boateng. He appears many times in his defensive role, stopping and tackling his opponent, Cristiano Ronaldo.

We find German coach Joachim Löw among top stars of the match. This happened only once, in game England Vs France, with French coach Laurent Blanc.