ECQ: Germany vs Iceland and Scotland 9/6,10 [R]

[olafgb]

Rudi announced the roster:

Goal:
Oliver Kahn, Bayern
Jens Lehmann, Arsenal

Defence:
Frank Baumann, Bremen
Arne Friedrich, Hertha
Michael Hartmann, Hertha
Andreas Hinkel, Stuttgart
Tobias Rau, Lautern
Marko Rehmer, Hertha
Christian Wörns, Dortmund

Midfield:
Michael Ballack, Bayern
Sebastian Deisler, Bayern
Paul Freier, Bochum
Jens Jeremies, Bayern
Sebastian Kehl, Dortmund
Christian Rahn, Hamburg
Carsten Ramelow, Leverkusen
Bernd Schneider, Leverkusen

Offence:
Fredi Bobic, Hertha
Miroslav Klose, Lautern
Kevin Kuranyi, Stuttgart
Benjamin Lauth, 1860
Oliver Neuville, Leverkusen

[Alex_K]

Originally posted by olafgb

Tobias Rau, Lautern


Did i miss something ? ;)

[olafgb]

Was just a check if someone recognises. Of course he plays for Stuttgart ;)

[Alex_K]

And i thought they realized that they would need reinforcements for today's cup game. (;) again)

[olafgb]

I doubt that one Rau would have been enough for them ;)

Bad news for the NT and Bochum: Paul Freier suffered a broken foot and will be out until December.

[olafgb]

To update some topics in the NT:

In ‘Daily Mirror’ Jens Lehmann claimed the number one position in the goal of the NT. He played it down a little bit later by saying that he wants to play the one or the other game more.


Kicker’s Shape Check:

Top Shape: nobody
Good Shape: Ballack, Baumann, Kahn, Lehmann
Average Shape: Deisler, Friedrich, Hinkel, Jeremies, Klose, Neuville, Rehmer, Ramelow, Rau, Schneider, Wörns
Declining Shape: Kuranyi, Rahn
Bad Shape: Bobic, Hartmann
No evaluation possible: Kehl


U21 plays same qualifiers this week. Current standings: 1 Lithuania 5 games, 9 points; 2 Germany 3 games, 7 points; 3 Scotland 4 games, 7 points; 4 Iceland 4 games, 0 points. The Faroes have no U21 team. Expected lineup for tomorrow: Wiese (Lautern) – Kringe (Cologne), Franz (Wolfsburg), Madlung (Hertha), Kling (Hamburg) – Marx (Hertha), Feulner (Bayern), Azaouagh (Mainz), Gemiti (Udine) – Lauth (1860), Auer (Mainz)

Team 2006 plays a game against Russia today. It’s the fourth game for this formation that is still waiting for the first win. Expected lineup for tonight: Hildebrand (Stuttgart) – Korzynietz (Gladbach), Müller (Wolfsburg), Wenzel (Stuttgart), Bönig (Bochum) – Hofmann (Rapid Vienna), Maltritz (Hamburg), Ernst (Bremen), Borowski (Bremen) – Bierofka (Leverkusen), Schroth (1860)

[Basti]

I have no idea what the intentions of this "Team 2006" are.

They keep changing the line up so basically it's the Germany B squad, except to reassure us that the DFB is making an effort to field a strong team in 2006. HAHA i say bollocks!!


Upcoming game... I really hope Deisler does not get injured

[Texan]

0-0 at the half. I can only imagine a very poor performance so far.

[miko]

F/T Iceland 0-0 Germany
With Scotland winning I think Germany are now 3rd in the group, and in danger of not even getting a play-off spot.

[Frankfurt Blue]

watched the game chaps. Germany were not great, to say the least. Iceland were excellent and should have won.

Watching it on ARD here in Germany, it is just as well Günther Netzer isn't team trainer of the national side. Complete berk. Völler was understandably upset at criticism levelled at him and the team. Don't know how Völler's outburst will go down here in Germany.

PS I think Kuranyi should have partnered Klose up front from the start.

[olafgb]

Absolutely poor game. Völler seemed to be mad in the post game interview (or he just went to the Matthias-Sammer-Media-School...). Delling and Netzer did normal criticism and were very right with their statements - it's not their job to praise the NT to heaven. It's more than poor when Völler justifies this performance by a remark like "Iceland was top ranked, what were you expecting?" (and a great Netzer reply "Only the devil knows how Iceland made it to the top..."). The German FA has 6 million members, the whole state Iceland no 300.000 citizens and an at best average NT - Germany can be more than lucky to have drawn such an easy group, in some others Germany would be without chance.

[Parmigiano]

For those who saw the match: how good were Iceland and how bad was Germany? Did Iceland basically play bunkerball, or did they hold their own on possession and create their own attacks?

[Frankfurt Blue]

Originally posted by olafgb
Absolutely poor game. Völler seemed to be mad in the post game interview (or he just went to the Matthias-Sammer-Media-School...). Delling and Netzer did normal criticism and were very right with their statements - it's not their job to praise the NT to heaven. It's more than poor when Völler justifies this performance by a remark like "Iceland was top ranked, what were you expecting?" (and a great Netzer reply "Only the devil knows how Iceland made it to the top..."). The German FA has 6 million members, the whole state Iceland no 300.000 citizens and an at best average NT - Germany can be more than lucky to have drawn such an easy group, in some others Germany would be without chance.

A lot of people I know can't stand Netzer for his total negativity for a start. He is over critical. What is he trying to do, become English? There's plenty there like him. (If you know what I mean).
Facts to face are this. Iceland are no mugs. Some of them have experience from the English Premiership, plus the overall attitude of players to their profession is much improved at all levels. Germany were not great in the World Cup- lucky draw and all that and now are being found out. Where was Ballack? Was he on the pitch? If he is truly world class, he should have grasped the game by the scruff og the neck. But couldn't as Iceland, you have to admit, had done their homework and employed the players able to do the job.
Your population statement doesn't stand up too well. Alright 3 World Cups, but Holland doesn't have a great population. 6 million members of the DFB? Scotland has a population of about 5 million.

Granted, it's all about opinions (like my other posts on this MB about the German national side), but the Netzer's of this world will never help. God help Germany were he the coach!

[Frankfurt Blue]

Originally posted by Parmigiano
For those who saw the match: how good were Iceland and how bad was Germany? Did Iceland basically play bunkerball, or did they hold their own on possession and create their own attacks?

In my opinion, Iceland went about it with a very professional attitude and made a not that great German side look poor. Kuranyi didn't start from the start, which I think he should. Iceland had the better chances - yep you heared right, not chance.....CHANCES. I think they will see it as 2 points dropped.

[Frankfurt Blue]

I still would be surprised if they didn't qualify for Euro2004. Anyway, if they didn't, it would not be a total disaster. This is Germany we are talking about .......... expect then to bounce and bite back!

[Germanshepherd]

Well, the pitch was in a very bad condition. It isn`t possible on a turf like that to play good and if the defense of the opponent doesn`t make mistakes and has tall defenders its hard to win such a game.

Iceland stood in the defense and took counter-attacks.

The German players were pleased with a 0:0 so they didn`t give everything to win this game.

[VFish]

Originally posted by Germanshepherd
Well, the pitch was in a very bad condition. It isn`t possible on a turf like that to play good and if the defense of the opponent doesn`t make mistakes and has tall defenders its hard to win such a game.

Iceland stood in the defense and took counter-attacks.

The German players were pleased with a 0:0 so they didn`t give everything to win this game. :D

[Texan]

A man destined for a career in politics. :)

[olafgb]

Originally posted by Frankfurt Blue
A lot of people I know can't stand Netzer for his total negativity for a start. He is over critical. What is he trying to do, become English? There's plenty there like him. (If you know what I mean).
Facts to face are this. Iceland are no mugs. Some of them have experience from the English Premiership, plus the overall attitude of players to their profession is much improved at all levels. Germany were not great in the World Cup- lucky draw and all that and now are being found out. Where was Ballack? Was he on the pitch? If he is truly world class, he should have grasped the game by the scruff og the neck. But couldn't as Iceland, you have to admit, had done their homework and employed the players able to do the job.
Your population statement doesn't stand up too well. Alright 3 World Cups, but Holland doesn't have a great population. 6 million members of the DFB? Scotland has a population of about 5 million.

Granted, it's all about opinions (like my other posts on this MB about the German national side), but the Netzer's of this world will never help. God help Germany were he the coach!

I don't agree with your statement about Netzer. IMO he's a very realistic commentator, who tells what he saw on the pitch. He's not talking anything nicer than it was, but he's also praising when he saw something positive. Rudi btw corrected himself and excluded Netzer from the criticism.

For sure Iceland improved over the last years and immediately after the group was drawn I had them on paper as serious contender for the playoff spot. But, please, they still have to be considered worse than Germany. Even Iceland wasn't playing a good game yesterday, the game quality was about 4.5 or 5 in kicker ratings. The worst thing about the German NT is that they play good against good teams, but bad against worse teams - they absolutely have the level to control a game against Iceland, but unfortunately you don't have the impression that the players give more than 70%. Ballack was awful yesterday, you are right, but you can't be serious if you rate any Iceland player ahead of him in terms of quality (in general, not yesterday).

Germany played six games in - next to Group A with France - the easiest qualifiying group and the result is: 50% won (one of them safe but also not good (in Lithuania), two of the them more than lucky (both vs Faroes)) and 50% tied (vs Lithuania, in Scotland and Iceland), that's a ridiculous outcome. For sure you can lose points in this group - especially against our traditional 1:1 country Scotland - but there was not a single convincing performance. I'm pretty sure that Germany will qualify despite of that, but we shouldn't even think about the situation if we had drawn the group with Norway and Romania or Wales, Finland and Bosnia.

[olafgb]

Rudi's appearance on TV deserves a translation!!! This will probably be a legendary speech…


ARD: Mr. Völler, do you protect your players after such a game as you need them on Wednesday or do you want to shake them up?
Rudi Völler: Both. After the game against the Faroes they were laughing at me for protecting the team. This is hardly possible today as we played too lazy especially in the second half. In the first half we had Iceland pretty much under control and had the one or the other chance ourselves. In the second half there were no impulses from the midfield and the forwards could hardly make their way. There evidently wasn’t enough movement. On Wednesday only those will play, who promise me to work 100% for the team.

Q: How do you want to solve the problem that the German Eleven hardly scores goals?
RV: We got to work on it. Kevin Kuranyi did a pretty good job in the second half. But basically it is true that we are not scoring enough goals. But regarding the reports I got to say that it is a shame what Günter Netzer and mainly Gerhard Delling say. I criticise the team, but of course I also got to protect them.

Q: What exactly do you mean?
RV: The permanent talk about a new lowest level, again and again. I can’t hear this crap anymore. I don’t know where the two of them take the right to say such things. I don’t understand it. And then this sentence, the Saturday evening entertainment is getting worse and worse… then Mr Delling shall do the Saturday evening entertainment and stop with sports and soccer. Then he should become Gottschalk’s successor at “Wetten, dass…?”. These reports are the very last for me. Otherwise it’s the best for me to change the job

Q: Aren’t you picking the wrong ones for your criticism?
RV: No, I am exactly picking the right one. I’m sitting here since three years and always got to listen to this nonsense.

Q: But he right partner for your criticism has to be the team.
RV: They will also have to listen to some words. But I can’t hear all this cheese about lowest level. We played 0:0 at the top ranked team. This surely is not enough for our claims. We are vice-world-champion, we got to play better. But all the crap that is talked… We should think about continuing like that. It is the worst to throw everything to the dirt. I won’t tolerate this much longer.

Q: But we as Vice-World-Champion should control a team like Iceland.
RV: Why? Iceland is top ranked or not? Why do we have to control them on the road? In what world are you living in? I criticised the team and on Wednesday I will only dress those, who will give everything [the original content of what he said, is probably r-rated ;)]. But you got to lower your level. What you always imagine about the soccer we should play in Germany… What the team around Günter Netzer formerly played was awful, that was standing soccer.

Q: I don’t quite understand why there is such a fire now…
RV: You are causing this fire. Do we have to tolerate everything?

Q: I did not cause the fire…
RV: You didn’t. You are sitting on your chair, drank three wheat beers and are relaxed.

Q: In Iceland there is no wheat beer and I am no wheat beer drinker. I don’t know if we should continue in this style. On Wednesday only those will play, who will give everything. Why didn’t you do this today?
RV: There also is an opponent on the pitch. Of course the one or the other didn’t play as I imagined it. At halftime I told that we got to add a little bit, but instead it got less. But I don’t understand the high level. Of course we got to play better. But nobody can demand that we fly here and defeat Iceland 5:0. Our situation didn’t change after this 0:0. We have to defeat the Scots. I’m sorry about the wheat beer remark, I didn’t mean it like this. But I meant everything else I said.

Q: After a game a team boss is under high voltage. That wasn’t different with Berti Vogts. Is the conversation a sign that you are really mad at the performance?
RV: Maybe I exaggerated with my words. Günter Netzer is right with the one or the other statement he said. But some things really are impudent. I am nobody like Erich Ribbeck or Berti Vogts, who sat on their chairs for years, no matter what the journalists or you TV guys said. This isn’t worth it. I always try to give my best to play successful and beautiful soccer. This doesn’t always work. Sometimes, as today, it is looking a bit worse. If Günter Netzer says, formerly they had one bad game and then ten great ones… I want to see the ten great ones. This must be some time ago, probably before WW2. But seriously… I think the criticism is too hard. Time and again criticism is necessary and today it is right. But there are some comments… I am coming to the studio, I am already mad at the team and then I got to listen to Mr Delling. I can’t accept it to be that extremely negative. I could lean back in a relaxed way, Mr. Hartmann, and say “They are criticising the team and not me”, but then I’d be at the wrong place. Then I’d have to find a new job, I also got to protect the team. These comments are unfair. I know, at some point I will get the criticism and I can stand it. I don’t need to have everybody calling “Rudi, Rudi” and “You are the greatest and the cutest” [hmm… I never heard anybody say that Rudi is the cutest :)]. I don’t want this. I just want fair reports.