Leinad, I agree with you. I prefer Jerome Boateng to Mats Hummels. As a BVB fan, I've seen a lot of Hummels. I find it frustrating how many times attackers get behind him. It doesn't happen half as often to Subotic who is the far more steady of the two. Neven's got more game ( "balls" in colloquial parlance), stronger in the air, and marking one-on-one than Hummels. Because this is a German forum we tend to focus more on the latter. Anyway, it's true what Subotic said a week ago in the papers, BVB have to get much tighter at the back. Hummels needs to raise his game. Snake.
Ya it's for sure me who needs to tighten his grip on reality... maybe you missed that Hummels himself said that his last season was weak and that he made too many errors and there are simply no stats out there in regards to costly mistakes. He did have a few scenes against Augsburg which simply shouldn't happen like his bad positioning against long/high balls which was already an issue last season and is mainly a thing of concentration, that's why I called him sloppy.
I'm worried about Hummels to be frank. Ever since EURO 2012 he's looked badly out-of-form, and amidst the injuries, the rushing back into action, and the poor chemistry with Santana, I was hopeful this season would be better. We'll wait and see. For now I'm unsure about him.
Could it be something mentally with him? I remember how he mentioned he was sick of football and felt depressed after the EUROS. Needs to be stronger mentally to get to the next level.
I expect Hummels to have a considerably better season ahead of WC 2014. I actually expect him to become Germany's undisputedly best defender again.
You're so bad at arguing. The point here is about your assessment based on the Augsburg game in which Hummels was "sloppy". He wasn't and you're just making up bullshit. Moreover Dortmund won the match 4-0. I would take this more seriously if the match backs up your observation but it also doesn't. And then conclude Boateng is the best CB. He's not. It's as simple as this.
Last season wasn't his best but badly out of form? I suppose we expect him to be so great that when he drops maybe one quarter level he's automatically "badly" out of form. He needs to get back to form but last season compared to the last four years is an anomaly. No reason for concern. Dortmund transitioned and every player can have off days. In hindsight did he become a better player? Yes. A better defender? Yes. Every season he is showing that he is getting better and a few mistakes here and there that he understands are there are nothing but attributes that will be addressed. No reason for concern. Most importantly he's on the starting team which he should be. The rest is just continue to do what he's done so far. He hasn't regressed at all, but it seems that is the sentiment here.
Perhaps I overstated the extent to which his form has regressed, but he has had a few doozies in the CL and the Bundesliga. I'm not expecting him to be flawless, and I'm certainly not in the "HUMMELS IZ SO OVERRATED" camp, but I expect a reversion to the mean in his performances and I hope he can continue to improve. He has all the tools to become a truly top defender.
Great match against the mighty Paraguay. You cannot fault Jogi or the players for the 3 goals they conceded, since it was all down to the individual world class of players such as Sancho Pancho, Villariba and Beppo Signori.
The BL season recently started and the NT player playing at foreign clubs came from the off-season to this friendly. Sure, pros are expected to provide good performanes no matter what, but that is not realistic. Thus I would be careful with critics, because some of the mistakes made today are based on individual mistakes (some of these due to the state of the season), while others are systematically. Players and coaching staff must draw the right implications from this match for the matches that really count (WCQ and WC).
Alert: MatthausSammer attached a file to the thread Review: German player 2013-2014 season performance thread. There may be more posts after this.
While I do agree that a great share of the blame for our defensive (and other...) shortcomings must be laid on Löw, it's not fair to solely blame him for everything that is going wrong in the mess we're currently in. The level of sloppiness and sheer carelessness of most of our players was truly astonishing, the same infuriating sloppiness that has already cost us in competitive matches, e.g. that famous qualification match vs. Sweden that still pisses me off every time I think about it. This can't really be excused with lack of match fitness either, as most of our players are still in Germany and have already one league match day behind them. It's a problem of attitude as well, which makes me far less forgiving about it. It's one thing not to have the ability, another to believe that you just have to show up and things will just work like a clockwork. Considering that now is the time to secure a spot in the WC squad with good performances, it's even more annoying. The most annoying thing however is that the likes of Schweinsteiger indirectly get 'rewarded' for their shitty attitude - missing friendly matches like yesterday seems to improve your standing instead of damaging it. It was very apparent that our game lacked structure without him. The only positive thing about yesterday was our considerably improved defence in the second half, which was a lot due to Boateng playing as Hummels' partner. Paraguay didn't even have a proper chance in the second half. Boateng had a great season and is the most in-form German defender, plus he has the pace that is particularly useful when playing with a high line. His strengths complement Hummels' well and vice versa. For once, I hope that Löw has finally realised this and sticks to this central defence pairing. We need the defence to gel, this is of utmost importance in that area in particular, so just stick to Lahm - Boateng - Hummels - Schmelzer (right Bayern side, left Dortmund) and stop 'experimenting' there! For once, being conservative would actually be a good thing, but Löw 'experiments' in the area where no such experiments are necessary or even helpful, while neglecting the need of looking for a working striker-less approach as an alternative to the tools we already have (and which, in Klose's case at least, are likely not going to improve, on the contrary).
Please Löw, find a better partner for Mertesacker. This Hummels guy showed a horrible performance. I don't know how such a bad player could be fielded...
While I agree with you, how about the idea that structure and ideology gives the players a better attitude. What if the lack of existence of a proper identity, a palpable identity simply makes the players so lackluster. This is why I always claim it comes down to the coach. If a player is unmotivated then yea it's an issue but the manager has to sort it out. If that's a common pattern with the player, then said player needs to be gone. However that's not the issue with most of our players as they perform very well for clubs (admittedly though we can dissect this issue as a primarily German one as we find attitude issues among German clubs in general but I digress) and for Germany there is no semblance of cohesion or belief. Oftentimes in matches players resort to basics like pointless crossing or get confused on defense because they don't have the protocol to function and problem-solve when issue A, B, C, etc arises. The more it happens the less belief these players have going forward, despite possibly believing so. In fact the disparity between club and country is further fuel as they come off motivated club performances with stored belief but nowhere to place that belief and execute it - because, again, Löw hasn't provided space for it. This is really why we constantly return to the Barcelona/Spain model because ideology/philosophy is the core and it sets the basis for everything following it to function. We don't really have that.