Two seasons ago, when Chelsea went to the UEFA Champions League final (at Luzhniki!), I though Ballack was playing as good as any player in the world. And he was huge in helping to carry that Germany team to the finals at Euro. When Ballack is healthy, he can be just as good as (if completely different than) Arshavin. Either one of them could be the best player on the pitch on Saturday.

What a pairing for a group though, huh? Very dramatic finish, and hopefully we’ll see both sides in South Africa.

That said, I believe the sentence is fine on its own merits. I have no problem contrasting it against your criticism.

I hope if you feel similarly about other content, you return and level similar objections.

That’s a very weird non sequitur. It’s almost like you’re saying that European countries are older cultures than African countries. Weirder still is jumping from how old the overall culture is to the deepness of the “footballing tradition.” Just hypothetically, since soccer is only like 150 years old or whatever, there could be a very young nation, culturally, with a longer “footballing tradition” than Germany’s. So I don’t see how the two concepts are related. And that’s as far as I got. I don’t read people who talk rubbish, so I stopped reading after that nonsensical blah blah blah.