Somebody wrote:
Rubbish. No team rhythym is disturbed. Croatia lost to Germany in '96, who they weren't exactly favourites to beat, so this hardly shows any fault. Are you actually suggesting Croatia had worse rhythym against Germany than in their first round matches?

A team's rhythm can be disrupted in two ways: tangible and intangible. The tangible is the actual flow of play on the pitch: the fluency of attack and organization of defence. A national team, unlike a club team, doesn't have too many chances to play competitive matches. Friendlies are often relied on to discover a satisfactory lineup, which by no means is fully battle-tested. If a team is winning at early stage of a major competition such as the World Cup, isn't it better to fine tune the successful lineup instead of tinker with it? Isn't it better to further improve understanding among the players under real match circumstance? Isn't it better to test different tactics with starters to prepare for battles ahead?

The intangible indicates the competitive rhythm and momentum. It means mental toughness, combative spirit, sheer concentration and total commitment. If a team wants to succeed in a tournament, it needs to build the competitive rhythm and momentum from match to match, so that it can go from strength to strength when the tournament progresses. It needs to maintain the mental toughness, combative spirit, sheer concentration and total commitment of the players. The success of sub-standard teams like the Czech Republic in Euro '96, Argentina in WC '90, Germany in WC '86 and WC '82 illustrate this point all too clearly. If these teams were to play the same opposition in series of one-off matches, they were very unlikely to achieve the same results as they did in respective tournaments.

As for the Croatians in Euro '96, if they reproduced their second-half performance against the Danes, they would defeat the Germans without any problem. If they concentrated on playing football, they would also send the Germans home. Unluckily, both of these didn't happen and I suspect that the slip against Portugal might have something to do with it.

The contrast of the Nigerians before and after the Paraguay game was even more startling. Before, the Nigerians played reasonably well and like a team. After, they played terribly and like eleven individuals. Of course we can't deny the efforts of the Danes, but IMHO, I still think that it was the Nigerians who defeated themselves rather than being defeated by the Danes.