[chelodelgado]

It hasn't been a good couple of week for german football. Three big losses in Italy from German NT, Bayern and Werder respectively, where NT and Bayern didn't even show up and merely went through the motion. It was this kind of disspirirted and disinterested performances that characterized the poor NT from 98 and up.

Player-wise, many good players Klinsmann relied on are having awful years, youngsters like Podolski, Schweinsteiger and Mertersacker are having very poor years. Combined that with serious questions in Deisler, Kahn/Lehmann, Klose, and Huth, it looks like they can only fill out half a team.

What can Klinsmann do to turn things around and to get the morale up? what's behind the serious shortage of football talents in Germany? And will Germany ever get back to being the football superpower it was in the 70's,80's and 90's?

[Dead Fingers]

see also
http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=321717

[penubly]

What I want to happen this summer, and what I expect are two dramatically different things!

I would love to see the team gel, and get on a streak as they did in 2002.

I don't expect it to happen, though.

There are too many players who have experienced a downturn since 2002, and not enough who have stepped up and progressed. Honestly, except for Ballack, which of the core players from the 2002 squad has improved? Metzelder has been hurt, Frings has been inconsistent, Hamann is nowhere to be seen. I don't think we can count on Kahn to reproduce the form he was on in Japan/Korea.

I honestly don't see Huth playing to the level we need.

I don't see a striker that will scare any of the defenses we will be seeing.

Given their group, they should be able to advance pretty easily. I'm not sure about anything else.

After France '98 and Euro '00 however, there was no reason to expect anything in Japan, so maybe we can look find a silver lining!

That being said, I will be watching them foremost, and hoping that they have an exceptional tournament.

[ForeverRed]

I do expect Germany to underperform this summer but that isn't Klinsmans fault entirely...while he is stubborn in player selection and not 100% there as a coach he is dealing with a difficult transition period for German NT football.

The youngsters are having a bad season and we should have known long ago that we can't really depend on them to lead the team at this stage, they're simply not ready yet.

Will Germany ever get back to their 70's, 80's & 90's glory? Maybe but it ain't happening anytime soon and on the road to that possible glory, the NT will go through some problematic situations and coaches like Klinsman who are only helping in pushing the carriage up that peak.

[mookhead]

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/060310/1/69lj.html

Something for German Fans to think about till the world cup. According to this article, I would not worry about friendly performences before the World Cup.

[chelodelgado]

You couldn't really expect Klinsmann to turn thing completely around, but initially I was really pleased by the apparent change of attitude from the players. He brought in a lot of kids and they really re-energized the squad and that gave me hope. But now things have come back down to reality, Germany doesn't have the talents period. And as it stands now, the offense will rely on Ballack, Podolski, Klose, Schweinie and Deisler. Ballack is the only sure thing, Podolski has been awful, Klose has never excelled against top opponents (I suspect he never will), Schweinie looked to have peaked, and Deisler.. well let's not even waste our time. Without the youngsters stepping up, this squad is going to be very, very average. Germany will get to the round of 8 and get knocked out by a serious contender.

[Gregoriak]

Originally Posted by mookhead

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/060310/1/69lj.html

Something for German Fans to think about till the world cup. According to this article, I would not worry about friendly performences before the World Cup.

Thanks for the link.

I recently checked 1970 newspapers sport section and all of the four preparation games Germany played before the Mexico World Cup were disastrous. The team didn't function, the midfield played atrociously without concept, Müller didn't score a single goal. The media was very pessimistic about Germany's chances at that World Cup, in fact they seriously thought if it wouldn't be a better idea to not participate deliberately as Germany would be spared the embarrassment that would certainly await the team if they played like that in the World Cup. And the first game they played in fact continued that series of crap performances, the terrible 2-1 defeat of Morocco. But after that, Germany suddenly got its act together and played arguably its greatest ever tournament, even if they "only" finished third.

Four years later on home soil, 1974, Germany shook off the unconvincing form of their preparatory matches against Spain (0-1) and Italy (1-1) to win their first three group games against Scotland (2-1), Hungary (5-0) and Sweden (2-0).

That's a severe error - the wins against Scotland, Hungary and Sweden were not part of the World Cup, they were friendlies as well!

[F96]

He's a believer:






Didn't know where to put it.

[Bayerntone]

Originally Posted by mookhead

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/060310/1/69lj.html

Something for German Fans to think about till the world cup. According to this article, I would not worry about friendly performences before the World Cup.

The article may provide a bit of solace to the string of poor records in friendlies. However, when the results of the friendlies are compounded together with the results of top Bundesliga teams in uefa competitions, the situation is sheer frightening.

[chelodelgado]

While playing on home turf is an advantage, it also brings a lot more pressure to perform that they didn't have in 2002. I don't see this team without a clear leader capable of coping with the pressure. Also can anyone tell me where did all the football talents went? Are German boys playing Playstation rather than football?