(Int'l Friendly) Germany vs Uruguay 05.29.2011 [R]

This won't work because Ozil is not a winger and does much better when he is in the middle. It's a waste of time having him there, he needs to play a lot deeper to be more effective.

Muller plays strictly on the wing, he can't play in the middle its not his game. If we can get him to do so though, this is most likely to produce results - though still, our midfield would be overrun.

Not to mention, this lineup is pointless against Spain.

-------------------Khedira------------

----Schweinsteiger-----------Özil--------

Müller------------Schürrle----------Götze

Özil is more of a winger than Podolski or Müller and a player like Iniesta can also play on both positions and is in a lot of ways similar to Özil.
Let's not forget that Özil made most of his league matches as LM and even when played as AM is often moving to the wings (he does that even more at Real than in the NT, a lot of his assists come from the wings).
So it's definitely not a waste of Özil to have him on the wings. The question is wether or not he is needed there and which other options are available.

Müller can of course play in the "middle" but in a totally different role (not that I want him there, Gomez is fine).
But why should our midfield be overrun? It's pretty much the one of the WC with slight adjustments (Özil next to Schweinsteiger instead of playing ahead of him).

pointless is a big word and against spain it's not just about he lineup. Our biggest problem was being too scared and not playing "our" football. I think this whole debate about beating Spain is in general overrated.
4-6 years ago Spain also didn't plan how to beat Brazil, France or whoever else. We should focus on our own game and when the time comes we will see if we have become good enough to beat them (switching your formation/style for one game doesn't make sense).

Iniesta has been played on the left, and his shortcomings as a winger have been exposed in that position. Guardiola has tried to play him as a wide man who cuts in, but he is simply a lot better right next to Xavi on the left rather than as a wide man.

I think you misconstrued my point. Oezil CAN play on the left, just not like a traditional winger can. You basically agree with me, he can drift to the left, but actually - he does better with Madrid when he is somewhat in the middle and sending balls to wingers, namely Marcelo, Di Maria and Ronaldo. He isn't a traditional winger in any sense of the word, Schuerrle and Muller can be used for that and he can act as the supplier.

We'll have a very attack oriented team which needs to maintain possession if that lineup is used. If we lose the ball, Khedira will most likely be faced with 3 to 4 players running at him in midfield. We can play with that formation, the question is if we'll be as efficient when it comes to breaking up play to suffocate counter attacks.

No it isn't. Our shortcomings revealed themselves against Spain. Although Oezil still hadn't had enough experience back that, and we didn't have Muller - the best player on our team and an absolute workhorse. Add to that Podolski who made one contribution all game, and we were destined to lose.

How do you know Spain didn't plan anything? Thats presumptuous - they figured they could use Barcelonas terrific play to their own advantage, and with that managed to overcome any team which was thrown at them.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JxarvUawd0&feature=feedu"]YouTube - ‪André Schürrle vs Uruguay HD‬‏[/ame]


Schuerrle vs Uruguay.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDhI3p963UA&feature=channel_video_title"]YouTube - Luis Suárez vs Mats Hummels HD[/ame]

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Del Bosqe definately saw Barca's transformation under pep early enough to congratulate them even before the 2nd clasico and he may well have planned with them but that does not mean Leinad's point on Loew's team focusing on their own game isn't valid. I agree with Loew entirely focusing on his team and improving their possession game. I think this team has the talent and maturity to take on Barca's midfield. Let's not forget Barca's midfield is less creative and less of a threat without Messi. Also more and more players comfortable with the ball are coming into this team.

A possession style approach against the current Spain isn't feasible, nor realistic. We have quality, no doubt Oezil, Muller, Khedira, Schweinsteiger and Schuerrle have lots of quality, but at this point they have far less experience than Spain and far less quality for that matter. Much like Madrid lost the possession game, so would Germany, not a doubt.

Yes Leow can focus on our qualities, but he could for example utilize counter attacks ala Inter when they had Mourinho. We can absorb waves of Spanish attacks but once we break possession we can then immediately instigate quick counter attacks.

In we have the kind of players far more suited to that type of play than the method you mentioned. How much quality does Real Madrid have in their lineup? Mourinho was thinking right when he got 3 DM, and we should as well. Thinking we could elevate our own game at this point is just naive (I'm talking Euro 2012) because the gap between their ability and ours is enormous.

These comments make you think Germany were losing 5-0.

The biggest problem right away would be Germany's 2 verses Spain's 3 man mid field. They are outnumbered from the start. They have Busquets, Alonso, and Xavi/Fabregas, both of the latter do far more defensive work than Oezil.

The issue would be are we going to ask Oezil to drop back from his natural role and try and retain, defend. He's not built for it at the moment and asking that of him would immediately be removing our most creative threat. The attack would fall apart without him in the center of it. We saw what happened during the semi. We went completely predictable by attacking wide and if we stick to players like Podolski and an aging Klose it will be even more difficult of a task.

The key is to re-format this side, give them tactical flexibility and bring in more intelligent, creative players in attack.

Of course, another option would be for Hummels to come forward but that also requires defensive compensation. The fullbacks would have to drop back and whoever is wing-forward will have to be competent and fit enough to do a two man's job. This is why it's important to bring in players like Schuerrle, Hummels for instance. They provide far more flexibility than what's there in the current setup.

Lol

you guys and your "traditional wingers". I don't know why everyone always assumes that I talk about Beckham like players when talking about wingers. The position and it's requirements simply changed and that's reflected by those who play there. Özil doesn't need to play like a traditional winger because that's not what the "modern" winger is supposed to do in this kind of 4-5-1/4-3-3 lineup.
I mean you could make the same argument for a player like Götze and yet he played a great season as RM (even Kroos played a great one with Leverkusen as LM). It's just part of the modern game that you have more and more playmaker types on the "wings" (that started already with Ronaldinho).

I always depends on how such a system is interpreted, writing some names down and a possible lineup doesn't really say much.

Like I said, this team also needs some time to further develop, Spain also needed a few years (see their performances in 2004 and 2006).

I didn't say that Spain hasn't "planned" anything but something like the current team (and domination) simply can't be planned. It's not like someone thought 6 years ago about how to achieve world dominance in football and then developed a cunning plan.
A lot of it is down to Barca's success and development including their players. Like I said just look at Spain before 2008, they always (tried to) play this kind of football and it wasn't even new. What was new is the combination of Barca's/Spain's football philosophy/system and a "golden generation" of players. The coaches of Spain of course realised that they just need to take the Barca core and it's way of football to be successful but it wasn't the result of a concept by the spanish NT and not created to beat a specific team or football style/philosophy/whatever.

I just say we should start to develop our own possession style. I also don't think that we should just copy Spain, I'd prefer a more direct approach with our players but I think it's a mistake to just surrender all possession to Spain. That's some you have to prevent and I think we are capable of doing that.

Counter attacks should be one of many options but I don't think it's a good idea to just wait for their attacks and something like Inter has done under Mourinho works better for clubs which have a lot of time to prepare while a NT can't experiment that often and thus should rather aim to improve their main game plan instead of developing many different ones and not being particulary good in any of them.

I don't think that it's naive at all. The gap isn't as enourmous as you make it sound and I'm quite confident that our team will be a better one in 2012 than it was in 2010.
That doesn't mean we will easily beat Spain but I see better chances and in the end we can't just worry about Spain. They might fail against another team and we should also not forget the other competition, it doesn't have to come down to Germany vs Spain.
That's why I think it just doesn't make sense to worry about Spain or why we shouldn't copy Mourinho. Our team wouldn't be used to playing three DM/CM's and it would probably hurt our game more than it helps (again the NT doesn't have much time to prepare for such rare system adjustments).
We will have to develop a strong well rounded "game plan" and hopefully it will work out against Spain once we reached the quality and experienced that's needed.

We could have lost 3 or 4 zero, then again it was a WC semi final and not a la liga game (albeit the classico).

No, we couldn't have. They didn't even have that many chances.

+1.

They also have the Barcelona, retain possession mentality drilled into them. We actually went in with a 5 man midfield against them last game, with Podolski and Trochowksi dropping back (part of the problem really, Muller and Schuerrle are far superior option).

That won't happen, Oezil never actually competes for 90 minutes and his movement slows down significantly the more the match wears on. Attacking wide was a lot better than attacking through the middle against that team.

We have to defend a high line for that to happen and would be thrashed. You can't defend high against Pedro and Villa because they're always looking to latch onto those through balls.

Right. Those were not very good options for attacking and defensive purposes.

Loew has been working on his plan B, but I have to admit it's not encouraging. The 4-4-2 is simply not suited to the available personnel.

Arsenal showed that attacking Barcelona can be a good option. They just lacked the bottle to perform their tasks and obviously weren't disciplined enough. They troubled them however. With the available personnel it's entirely possible to press them the way they press everyone else. Loew just needs to bring the right players in and drill them to play that way.

Arsenal certainly did attack Barcelona, but only after they had conceded twice. Barcelona had gotten ahead of themselves and believed the game was won already, add to that their less than good form away from home and you can see how things worked out the way it did. Eventually, they hammered them 3-1 at home (an own goal by Busquets who played CD this time).

Your correct but kind of skewed off the point. The point is Oezil players better sending balls out wide and through the middle, his influence on far greater on the game that way and this was evident throughout his first season with Madrid. I'm not saying they cannot play as wingers in that sense, nor did I even imply it - I just said with Schuerrle and Muller on the wings, he'd be more effective and influential and can create attacks in a multi-pronged fashion.

Again I agree with you, and it does depend on the team. We could use a much more attack, possession oriented lineup against weaker teams for example, but it would be hard against teams with superior technical ability.

My post was about Germany in 2010, obviously we had a very young squad, albeit a terrific one. I am confident we will become better so long as our players develop at club level.

I didn't say we should copy Spain because we don't have the quality for tique-taka football, it's not our thing and its something players have to work on for years. Surrendering all possession is not what I meant, but rather we absorb the pressure and focus on getting to goal as quick as possible once we do. It's been tried many times against them but most of those teams lack the quality to get to goal that quick, with this Germany squad, we are capable of doing so.

In short, we shouldn't aim to keep possession as we should aim to get to goal once enough Spanish players are in our half. This is what Leow tried to do, but neither Podolski nor Trochowski are suited to this task. We did well to break up play though, particularly through Khedira and Schweini.

We executed them to perfection against Argentina and England, as well as lesser teams of course. Leow has done a terrific job at doing that no doubt. Not necessarily saying it would work, but its what we've seen work before with lesser experience and quality.

Yes it is, but you like to generalize things. Of course our team will be better, all things are pointed towards that. But just replaying that game again really does show how big that game is, the Spanish were all over us and passed the ball with indefatigable character and such ease. We held well, particularly Schweini and Khedira, but they danced around us in circles.

I see were you are coming from with the 3 DMF's, maybe Leow could work it - maybe he won't, but I still think it's our most realistic option of truly stifling the attack. It would be best to see however, us not face them at all because 3 defeats in a row would be horrible. Though not at all shocking.

They had about 6 or 7 good ones, we were saved the embarrassment by pedros naivete and a cross a little too hard by Iniesta really.

They had about 6 or 7 good ones, we were saved the embarrassment by pedros naivete and a cross a little too hard by Iniesta really.

Especially when u have players who are very comfortable with the ball.(Bold)



------------------------Neuer----------------------------


Lahm-------Badstuber/Friedrich-----------Hummels----------Aogo--

--------Khedira/Schweinsteiger-------------Kroos--------------------

-------Schurrle-------------Özil--------------Götze--------------

--------------------Gomez/Muller------------------------------

I don't really remember that many chances, Spain outplayed Germany but I only remember about 3 or 4 chances all match that they actually created. The main difference was on the field, we couldn't go to their net and only made 1 good chance all match which is embarrassing. Besides that chance, Casillas could stood with his journalist girlfriend the rest of the time and no one know notice.