Germany Vs. Portugal: Mario Gomez Delivers German Win

Germany looked slow by their standards in the first half, and didn’t look much quicker in the second half. Mesut Özil tried to run the show from the center like he usually does for the Germans and for Real Madrid, but the three forwards in front of him weren’t making the right runs, and Özil wasn’t exactly at his best either. The Germany that showed up to play Portugal looked nothing like the Germany that destroyed Turkey and Belgium in qualifying, and as the game wore on, things looked more and more dire for the favorites.

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

Neuer hasn’t had a good game, but that was a vital stop. With the match at 1-0 and already into injury time, Portugal won’t get many more chances like that to avoid an opening-game loss that they probably don’t deserve on the balance of play. They’ll really be ruing the Varela miss and Pepe’s crossbar hit from the first half if they do end up losing this one.

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

For reasons unknown to pretty much everyone, every major international soccer tournament needs a mascot, often multiple mascots. Apparently nothing screams “world-class sports” like invented animals and creatures jumping around. Sometimes it gets even better, though, when the mascot is made to look like an overexcited human with the grin of a pedophile. World-class sports!

The organizers of Euro 2012 decided to go with the overexcited human look, only he has designs cut into his hair to give him the necessary mascot pizzazz. Don’t worry, the grin of a pedophile is still there (even if it’s not visible in the GIF -- trust me, it’s there).

So it’s 1-0 Germany and it turns out that Joachim Loew didn’t need to substitute everyone all at once and that we might have been overreacting a little bit. Now that they’ve got a goal, Germany might be able to play a little bit of football and put this match to bed. We shall see.

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

Is Germany manager Joachim Loew picking his nose, or merely scratching it?

You be the judge!

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

Update: Germany 1-0 Portugal, Final Score

Basically, other than the late Pepe chance, neither team looks like scoring. Both managers are going to have to make changes to their team at halftime, or at least give some kind of fiery speech. This really has not been one for the neutrals, and both teams’ supporters have to be disappointed.

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

They do manage to get it to Nani on a counterattack, however, and the Manchester United man earned Holger Badstuber a booking when the centre back is forced to foul him to stop the winger breaking down the right. Exciting, eh? (Not that exciting.)

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

Anyway, Podolski belts the free kick straight into the wall, and Portugual are completely let off the hook. A few minutes later and Podolski is at it again, skying a very easy chance after being fed in the area by Mesut Ozil. I’m really not very sure why he’s starting. Now that I’ve said that, he’ll get a hattrick.

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

Germany, meanwhile, are playing very slowly right now, seemingly inviting pressure from their opponents and then skipping away to make yet another safe, conservative pass, waiting for the perfect moment. Eventually it comes, and a slick passage of play leads to a first-time cross by Thomas Mueller. Lucas Podolski’s shot, however, is straight at Rui Patricio and the chance is gone.

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.

A few seconds later, Mats Hummels is forced to make a crucial interception as Fabio Coentrao looks to pick out Ronaldo in the box. The subsequent corner is delay by people throwing things on the pitch. Why?

We have live coverage of the game in our Germany vs. Portugal, Euro 2012 StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on Twitter.