PBP: (EURO 08 Group B) Croatia v. Germany [R]

Dunno what does winger mean in New Zealand but well, Borowski or Hitz cant take on defenders then cross deep can they? Borowski n Hitz are both lack of pace and creativity. Well, our entire team isn't quick and normally the two wingers suipposedly be the two fastest or most skillful players in the starting 11. Robben, C.Ronaldo or Messi are some good examples.

In the last 2-3 years, i seriously think we did play with a traditional wide player in Schneider. He always plays wide at the RM. he did try to pentrate to the crossline and cross it deep.

Playing Borowski and Hitz at the flanks are a wase of Klose's and Ballack's superior aerial ability.
Not to mention ALL the wide players we have are powerhouses/sprinters. And i think Borowski n Hitz are apparently better of in the middle rather than playing wide,

Pander's set=pieces and Marin's ability to take on defenders then provide nice crosses are missed

 

exactly.

in this game were were put off their game by a combination of things and the offensive running was out of sync or too lazy and defensive awareness was also lacking

in the end football's a simple game of seeing, running, anticipating, passing...

If the players are not mentally sharp enough it all falls down

 

I don't really know either...but it sort of means "run down the wing and cross" I think. NZ clubs play stereotypical english football. If you watched the world club cup matches, the nz side's game against the japanese one was so bad that it'd make your ears bleed. The japanese just had the ball forever.

I didn't learn my football here.

I answered the rest of your post on the last page.

 

LOL. I can certainly deal better with someone saying he/she doesn't like Lehmann's nose than with this kind of irrational bashing based on antipathy towards a player that has been shown quite clearly before. I don't dislike any player in this team and I can say with a good conscience that I don't have any club bias either so I try to take a look at their performance and only that instead of jumping on every opportunity to blame a player for a rubbish performance of the whole team. What does make it worse is that unfortuantely it's exactely the wrong person to blame, too. This kind of stuff makes me glad that it is almost impossible in Germany to get your hands on a pumpgun which would enable you to walk into the nearby pub (or to hunt down that idiot Bela Rethi in his pundit booth in Austria....).

 

The ball was defencted. There is no but. It is a hellish thing to react to and maybe another goalkeepers movement would have looked more fluid but that wouldn't change the fact he would only got to it with luck. He anticipated a cross and it is very hard to change you movement in the other direction then. And I recomment you not to watch a low-mo too often because sooner or later it make everything look "saveble". I have seen this kind of problem from goalkeeper of any age, including Adler btw, and if you have not exerienced situations like that yourself and don't know how hards it really is I think you should hold back with you theories.

As for Wenger: no, he is not that clever. In fact some of his decisions and management has been downright dumb in the past few years. I simply used to love the guy and he did some great work for us in the past but man, he would have lost his job two years ago if he would be a coach in Germany (and after half a season at Chelsea) and the air will be getting extremely thin for him if he does the same mistakes next season. Don't you get it? The important members of our board ran off because they don't agree with him anymore. Players are leaving the sinking ship every season because they are not willing to play for a club that does not play as much as other big clubs but not even offers a clear chance to win anything anymore. If you don't get the best wages but know instead that you will be fine in the trophy department, okay. But as soon as they reach a certain potential they are off because Wenger is stuck in his little idealistic world where you can win the league and CL with cheap transfers, a starting 11 that lacks experience and that will of course be like that for the whole season because, no, we never get injuries (and RvP and Rosicky will of course play a whole season instead of only two months as usual) which justifies a squad that is not only thin but also lacks quality. Really, don't try to sell Wenger to me because I have followed his work for ten years now and he has managed to turn me from a convinced "Wenger knows" follower into someone who thinks he should either move on to the board and leave the coaching to someone else or that he will get the sack sooner or late.

 

No, why? I have seen who has made comments about him on a regular basis that didn't have anything to do with rational or fair arguments and exately these people come out to bash him. Who, like I mentioned befor, are mostly Bayern-fans. Things are quite obvious so why should I not criticise?

 

Agree.

 

Gooner, would I be right in saying that your idol as a kid was jens and grew up becoming a keeper like him?

 

Actually that was Schmeichel but I definitely admire goalkeepers with Jens' style the most.

 

Btw, Schweini out for one game, Jansen, Poldi and Lahm injured.

 

How seriously, missing next game?

 

wtf drew you to schmeichel? His heroics in 92? the bastard


how serious are those injuries?

 

yes exactley but unfortunatley 4 4 2 is loews idee fixe
he will not discard it i fear so he is either succesful now (meaning minimum the semis) or he is gone anyways

 

Haha, his general awesomeness. I was young and easily impressed.

All three could not take part in training today but nothing about whether they will be able to play on Monday. Jansen has a should injury, Podolski a capsel problem (or whatever it is called) in his ankle and Lahm a bruised calf. I doubt that Jansen would have played anyway. Podolski could miss the game but the Lahm injury does not sound too serious. However, who is supposed to score the goals if Poldi does not play? I can't believe we have problems scoring now.

Ah, Lahm just said on the press conference that he expects to be fit to play in Monday. Gooooooooood.

 

"podolski could miss the game"

did they say that themselves?

 

Nah, that was my guessing because his injury is something that can cause more problems than Lahm's bruised calf. I hope he will be fine. Now real news about Poldi.

 

watch it a third time.

Amsteldam? That says it all.

 

which consists of giving up loose balls these days. One would definitely have to be a Lehman fanboy to ignore the problem at this point. Nobody cares about Kahn, his best days are long behind him as well and he wouldn't do as a replacement. People care about success in this tournament and quite rightly see that Jens is not playing well.

OTOH, there really isn't an option to bring in from the bench.

If Jens magically fixes his game and regains his composure, then all the better and no one will have a problem.

 

Gooner is not a Lehman "fanboy", she is a Lehman "fangirl".

 

Just rewatched the 2nd goal...couldn't really be bothered to have a closer look when I saw it first...you need to be very strong-willed or apply low standards of goalkeeping not to see him at fault there. Together with his positional uncertainties, passing uncertainties etc. I'm not relaxed anymore now. A goalkeeper in his shape can lose a tournament.

 

Hey, Squidward, another thread for you:

https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=705775

And seems like Brehme agrees with me about the Poland game.

 

Well, then explain what he did wrong and what he should have done better instead of veague accusations. And where did you see passing uncertainties yesterday?

 

To everyone who says Ballack is being employed as a defensive midfielder - he's not. He's supposed to move forward significantly into AM when Germany has possession. This was explained well recently in two articles, I think it's in this one (German) too.

Is it just possible that Ballack had a very poor, sloppy start to the game yesterday before he woke up later on, relying on the others to get it done just like everyone else? Because I've seen both his good and excellent games and the "very poor, sloppy" ones for Chelsea this season I wasn't that surprised.

This other thread is just doing the usual again, judging team and player after watching one game.

 

And I'd like an explanation from you as well, please. Not some polemic stuff about "giving up loose" balls. Where and when did he do that if you don't mind?

 

I don't think that would help.