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

Which is a 1.5. A few agreed on that.

 

I'll give you a reason, our left side is too exposed. If Loew wants to play both Podol, Klose, and Gomes altogther, it's fine to me as well, because who is not enjoying them playing like yesterday?

However, we should change the formation maybe to 4-3-3. I am really concerned if we are up against the like of CR7, RIbery or Natale: tricky, speedy, and technical.

Proposed solution: Employ Tim or Schweni in 3 man midfield altogether with Ballack and Frings. It shall work.

 

Proposed alternativ solution: sacrifice Jansen for Westermann to give Podolski a free reign on the left. He plays his new role much better than I had expected.

I don't think Löw should change too much. Tim can be used as a sub for Fritz until he is fully fit.

 

Wouldn't mind that, the problem I found if you switch Lahm to the left and have friedrich on the right is having 2 really offensive players on the left in Lahm and Poldi and 2 very defensive players on the right would have serious problems.

A potential alternative could also be switching Lahm and Fritz...and have Lahm play RM. It could be better than having Westermann...but I don't think it's really crossed anyone's mind.

 

Lahm has stated on numerous occasions that he doesn’t want to play in the midfield. He was very adamant about it at Bayern, and I doubt his feelings are any different with the national team. If we want to keep the same formation while shoring up the defense Löw could always try this:
---------------Lehman-------------
Fritz-------Merte----Metze----Lahm
Schweini---Frings---Ballack---Podolski
-----------Gomez---Klose

 

How about this?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.


This is a ton of speculation about problems that haven't even come up.......

 

Hallaluja!

Until Fritz costs us in midfield or until Jansen is the direct cause of an opponent scoring we should just leave this be, it worked very well yesterday and I'm positive it can for the next two matches.

How bout we assess the situation of Ribery, Di Natale etc. when they actually come up? We're not even out of the group yet.

 

And neither are they. I like the formation as it is, because it gives us the best chance to out score our opponents. We are never going to be a defensive jugernaut, but our team is well balanced.

 

1. There will be no 4-3-3. Period. Full stop. Clear, repeated official decision. It was nicely explained in a Süddeutsche article which I cannot find anymore that there's a lot of reasoning behind the current 4-4-2.
2. Jansen will get his act together for the next game and we'll all be happy.

 

something important Scholl said today is that you should work on your strengths and not worry about ur weaknesses. ^^
Our strength since Klinsmann is our offensive power and we shouldnt sacrifice this for more defensive stability.
We did that to some extent against Argentinia and Italy at the WC and i think that wasnt the best decission.
Look at holland today, you dont need to play super cautious football to be successful.

 

Case in point: Italy today.

 

Agreed. And the beauty of it is that it's not difficult at all to switch to 4-3-3 even on-the-fly, by having Podolski stepping up and Schweini/Fritz stepping down to hold the midfield next to Ballack and Frings.

I really like the flexibility we have. Gomez did come to the midfield to help pressing for numerous times. Podolski could play down the flank or cut inside, or help defend. Ballack could move forward, of course. This makes for a variety of tactics we could use against different team.

 

And France

 

Yup.

If Italy played the way they did two years ago I think their game would have been similar to the France/Romania game though. Its all about how you approach games vs. different sides.

You can't afford to be overly attacking against organized teams with a lot of depth and quality. That was Donadoni's flaw today.

 

Or overly defensive, like I felt France was today when they had Toulalon and Makelele together against a team that was always going to be on the back foot.

 

Yea they would have been better off with a Flamini in front of Makelele, but he was sent home since Vieira is expected to recover. Dommenech also failed to make the proper changes. Malouda was in there for too long when they could have used more central attacking players or another winger to let Ribery take on that role.

 

I suspect their fortunes will turn when they are able to switch Henry and Vieira with Anelka and Toulalan.

 

f96, those two articles - msn one and iht one - were over the top. That's the form I hope we'll reach in coming games though

 

It's just that these guys, basically everyone who hasn't seen Germany since the World Cup, were pretty surprised.

Between the 35th and 60th minute, not sure whether that was complacency or the desire to be defensively tight this time around, but I wouldn't judge the performance too much on that period...as usual, it was no accident whatsoever that we got our first goal early into the game, which gives me confidence.

 

from the 40th minute (not 35th) till halftime we let them have the ball but they got nowhere near the goal. All safe passing higher up the field.

From halftime till the 65th it was tit for tat. Both teams took turns and both teams looks a bit threatening, but neither as threatening as germany were in first half.

We have high standards to actually be a little disappointed with that period, because Poland are a good team.

Do you get to watch full replays on tv? I ask because it's not on pay-tv there...

 

Do you mean full match replays or replays of certain plays during the match?

I usually record the matches and watch the majority of them again.

As far a full match replays, there aren't any on regular German TV, but Eurosport replays some of them.

 

I meant full match replays. Over here I think the tournament is on terrestrial tv on a game-per-matchday basis for the group stages and then everything for the knockout stages, but there are no replays.

I have pay-tv here so we get every match live, and each game is full-replayed once and sometimes twice in the 24 hours after the game. I think today the 2 games are only getting shown once but tomorrow they are showing Spain/Russia and Greece/Sweden twice each on replay.

Of course it's all very covenient and quite necessary for us because the live match times are crap, but I watch all the 6:45 am games live anyway. The 4 am games no, unless it's a Germany one.

Off to watch the france game now...

 

I downloaded the match as usual.

I don't think Poland are that good, they lack in the final third of attack, I think they'll lose narrowly or get a draw against Croatia.

 

That's better than what we had in the USA for Euro 2004. Setanta put every match but a couple on PPV. This time, they get them on cable with ESPN2, but I don't think they get replays.

Don't waste your time......

 

The matches are also on BBC/iplayer (but only in the UK and only for a week after the match).