Thats dangerous though especially defensively. Althuogh excuse my bashing on Podolski his defensive work cant be that bad either. In fact, Podolski managed to track back several times in the first game. It would be interesting, but risky nonetheless. In my opinion though the problem does not lie in the amount of creative players, but rather creating space ,something we did very well against Australia.
I'd rate Neuer with 2,5 (although he made 1 mistake which thankfully didn't backfire), Boateng with 4, Lahm with 3 (his first half wasn't that good), Podolski & Müller (despite his assist) with 5 and Cacau with 4,5. Where's Özil, btw? I'd give him a 4 (despite his great goal)...
Ok, then let's call it "BAD". Especially his defensive mistakes which led to some top chances for Ghana were shocking. Without Schweinsteiger, we'll be facing serious trouble against England. Interesting opinion. But you don't get a good rating just for that. His positioning, passing and duel performance was simply bad in my eyes. I'm not really a Ballack "fan" (especially after his disappointing EC 2008), but we clearly missed him tonight.
Did you actually watch the game or did you just listen to the German commentator? Because you seem to just parrot his strange views... Which defensive mistakes are you talking about? Yes, Schweinsteiger was one of our best players today, but it took quite some time for him to find into the game. At first, he made a lot of soft passes which were incredibly easy to intercept. His tacklings and the way he kept the ball where great though. Khedira played a different role though. In the first half, he was more of a box-to-box midfielder, in the second he guarded KP Boateng. Granted, he didn't stand out today, but he wasn't bad either. Go back to what I've written before and look at the performances in context. Ghana really did a great job in shutting down our midfield, including Khedira, Schweinsteiger AND Özil.
Watch the game again ... and you'll see them. His worst scene was when 2 players from Ghana played "Doppelpass" in our box (2nd half) ... and Khedira didn't follow his opponent, so Lahm had to make a crucial save. Ghana didn't play another system than Serbia (which we dominated with 10 men), so this excuse doesn't work. There simply wasn't enough movement ... and the passing got worse from minute to minute (unbelievably easy turnovers). That has nothing to do with "shutting down our midfield". Gute N8
I must have missed that one. But as far as I could see every major scoring opportunity for Ghana stemmed from Mertesacker making a mistake. I think we kinda lost that game if my memory serves me right... Actually, that is exactly how a midfield looks like when it has been shut down. We neither had time nor space, which obviously lead to mistakes.
What I find funny is how one sometimes fails to put things into perspective. Just as an example since I am living in Colombia and have argentine Fox Sports feed, when Argentina won only one nil against Nigeria, where of course Messi could have scored a brace, but Nigeria also put in some decent effort. Everyone is talking about Argentinas good game. Not to discredit Argentina who in my opinion are the most succesfull team so far apart from Brasil. We win against a much stronger opponent than Nigeria(who were abysmal) and somehow we manage to bury all the positives and just point out the negatives. Do not understand me wrong, this performance was far from perfect or even great, but I think from the Serbia game excepting Mertesacker it was an improvement. Not to mention, the immense pressure the guys had before the game. And on a side note. People saying that we played as bad as against I simply cannot understand with all due respect. In that game we never even had the ball nor the plot. Not even chances!. The goals came from individual play and some defensive blunders by Turkey. IMHO totally not comparable.
I agree people are looking a little too negatively at today's performance... A question. Why is Germany playing England...?. I don't think I get it. England and the US tied two games and won one. Don't they have the same goal difference (+1)?. Don't the US have one more goal scored? .
That's the German mentality though! We struggled against a team that's also moving into the last 16th. Nothing to be overly embarrassed about. It's a little frustrating though to see this German team to not be fully able to unfold its potential. Hopefully, they can do better in the next game.
Uh exactly. The US had one more goal scored.. putting them first, england second. We are first with 6 points, ghana second with 4 points. 1C(USA) vs 2D(Ghana).... 1D(Germany) vs 2C(England)
Both Khedira and Schweinsteiger are crucial and won't work without each other. His mistakes are overstated as he did far more to retain possession throughout the match. Again, Germany were pressed and faced with twice the quick players as Australia and Serbia had available, so considering that I think the midfield, in its first time together against this type of opposition actually did fairly well. It's the defense we should be worried about. They play far too high at times and we don't have the players for it and then don't cover their positions as they should. Most of all they hold back our full backs and don't allow them to attack enough.
We have to try and defend more as a unit. Its not the player per se I see a problem with, but rather that we are far too passive. There were several times were Khedira and Schweini simply had to go and pressure the opponent. Several times they did not leaving our unassured defense alone. As soon as we scored the goal this was better obviously because our play became much more defensive. What we have to be carefull about is not losing balls in the middle of the field, because those were the ones that hurt us the most today.
Haha, I forgot Özil Özil: 3,5 Scored a great goal, besides that, meh. Wasted a great 1on1 opportunity and also wasted several other chances for the crucial pass. Concerning Neuer, yes he made that one mistake where Lahm had to clear off the line, but also made 1-2 other bad attempts to catch the ball with his hands after corners. On the other side, he stoped that shot, so he gets an average grade of 3,5 from me. I think we agree on Boatengs and Lahms showing more or less, about Podolski and Müller, giving it a second thought, they might deserve a worse grade (maybe a 4?), but I feel like that the Ghanaians defended very well today and that Germanys lack of chances was not mostly because Germany was so bad, but also because Ghana was so good. It cannot be stressed enough though that Podolski was no way worse than Müller tonight. They were equally average/bad tonight, imho.
And that mentality is good. Makes sure that we keep improving. However, lets not make it much worse than it really is. This team even if not in this WC, with more experienced players and more playing time, will definetly be a good one. Im really excited about our game on Sunday. In a World Cup no matter if your team is playing well or not, its all about surviving. Even Argentina who have been the most solid side have nothing assured. Every game is a different story.
totally agree. i thought our game was ok under the given circumstances. we were shaking a few times but c'mon you cannot expect us to blast every opponent 4:0. ghana was in excellent position in which a draw was needed to advance while we had to win to be sure to proceed. so all ghana had to do was sit back and counter. of course there is always room for improvement but i am sure this was the test this team needed. we are only getting stronger from here on.
The crew from ITV (made up of Southgate, Edgar davids and two others) got it pretty spot on. Southgate mentioned the u21 and u19 wins and the work the youth system has been doing and that in 2-3 years this will be an excellent team. The other guy said he thinks the CM is a little bit soft, and while Germany is very talented England is more experienced and could grow from here (sort of ignoring that Germany is always growing) and the edge is with England. The general consensus was that Germany is more talented but raw, but in 2-3 years will be a hell of a team, but it was still a 50/50 prediction. Davids wanted Germany to win based on current attractiveness
i think germany always got problem with team play defense and passing skills as serbia and ghana but i am confident if we face england then is better for us,because they under pressure to win it from the coach to players and the important thing is rooney,lampard,heskey....they all lost form and some injuries,and the good news is we love to play english style long ball and cross from the wings so we control that without a problem though,so if we play again england as we did to aussie then we will beat them 2 - 0 easily,trust me england fear us more than we fear them(history and record),show them exactly how we played again aussie then we will beat them!
once again podolski shows nothing today but selfish and bird shooting again,oezil just make up for the first chance he missed,mueller is under performent,cacau is like getting lost in front,trochowski and kroos came in to lated so did nto show much,lahm got a normal game but made a great saved though,khedira is great and friedrich also,i hope schweinni injuries not serious and we got 4 days to rest,but it's seem like they got tired easily even only 90',what's if we go to over time for 30 minutes and then penalty?are they still get enough power to take penalty?this worry me most,i am not concern about england because they suck big time and they cant even top group...shame....shame!
The match I watched saw Mertesacker & Friedrich standing tall on defense and blocking every ball that came their way. The defense overall did very well today (we've only given up 1 goal in 3 games). The offense, especially Cacau, Khedira, Oezil and Poldi played really poorly and couldn't connect more than 2 passes all day. Cacau brought nothing to this match. Fortunately, he wasn't needed. Lahm supplied most of our offense today, is there nothing our captain can't do? Again, Oezil blows a one-on-one. Can't have that against Engerland. Also, without Klose in there, Poldi is useless. Maybe it's their Polish-German blood, but when they're on the field, they play much better. Schweini was fantastic today. Hope he's not injured. If the English give us stick, remind them where the name "England" came from. Pretty ironic.
Hmm, I cant really agree with that analysis and I can say that our defense did very poorly in many of the chances Ghana had. The reason why we havent conceded is a bit of luck and those cool interventions by Lahm. The offense wasnt very good today, but every chance we had came from a nice through pass or good build up play. If you ask me our defense was even worse than our offense if you want to put it that way.
Well, I'm completely off the England bandwagon, not because of Özil (who, for the record, looked almost asleep by the end of the game) but because of the English leadership clusterf*ck. (I'm a Chelsea fan and I hate John Terry.) I still haven't watched the entire game yet because of death by vuvuzelas, but it appears that there was a lot to complain about.