PBP: WCQ: Finland vs. Germany [R]

That shouldnt be the case.........Tasci was capped half a year ago, when he reached 21. So Loew picked him becoz of other reasons..

 

Why do you think that? He has been in the starting 11 for most of Schalke's matches this year. I wouldn't be surprised if he became a permanent starter over the course of the season.

Hummels may be Bayern's solution to the DM problem. If we do not buy a new DM it is likely that Mats will be asked to play that position.

 

No, he was called up but he never played did he?

I would like to see Hummels in the squad very soon. Hoewedes doesn't play as much so he could take longer.

 

He was capped for Germany half a year ago, becoz he played for Germany U21. Unless he applied for a change (i.e.for Turkey) before the age of 21, he has to play for Germany in the future.

So he was capped in MArch or April............cant remember when his birthday was. And need to play for Germany forever starting from the age of 21.

That applies to Dejagah, Hunt and Khedira too. They're too old to change their status.

Squid, there are few regulations to "cap" a player. Playing for one senior NT is one of them. But nowadays, the "21 year old" rule has been mentioned sooo many times

 

Gomez makes Kuranyi and Carsten Jancer look like world class players. I he shouild have chosen Spain. who advised Fritz to play soccer, he's soo stiff he cant turn even his neck

 

oh i see, i wasnt aware of the 21 rule. I thought you just had to play for the senior NT at any age.

 

So are we done discussing this nightmare?

 

Moaning? Really? I was quite positive and optimistic leading up to the Euros. My post-game post wasn't negative either, I focused on the positives of the game. That doesn't mean I can't be cynical, thats just the nature of my fandom. And of course I'm dealing with it, doesn't mean I can't make my feelings known. The NT at the moment is a rollercoster on many levels, so expect some of the supporters reactions to parallel that to a certain extent.

 

how come nobody mentions Robert Huth as an option in defence, and what about moving Lahm to the right and have Pander on the left after all hes the best on set plays

 

Huth has a reputation for being very clumsy and a bit of a defensive liability but he is quite underrated and is doing well in England where his game has improved from what I've seen. Loew should recall him and give him another chance.

As for Pander, he is too inconsistent, particularly because of his injuries and as a defender he isn't exactly 100% reliable. Lahm, for some of his defensive weaknesses, can move the ball out of the defensive end better than anyone. Personally, I'm hoping Castro gets called up and plays to his reputation and potential so we no longer have to worry about the likes of Fritz on the right and we can end the "move Lahm to the right" discussions.

 

surely we can't play with westerman and tasci against russia, westermann is a good squad player to have in a tournament but not as a starter , every week he plays different position for schalke , if Huth stays injury free and keeps up his good performances i'd like to see him beside mertesacker.

as for right back ,castro is good but hes still not ready and i dont think its his natural position ,he used to play midfield. if Goerlitz didnt have those bad injuries he wouldve been ideal .

i also think Helmes and Kiessling r the most mobile strikers in the league, and helmes i think is the only striker in the league who can create his own shot when around the box

 

I'm quite the Huth fangirl so I really would like to dee him get a chance.

 

how about you spell "littbarski" right?

 

dont hate me for using kicker ratings but according to them Castro was the best FB last season.
Thats ofc just half the truth but it shows that he is an absolute valid solution for the RB spot in the NT.
He is already NOW not inferior to Fritz, Hinkel etc., has plenty of BL experience (nearly 100 BL games with just 20 years), even international ones (played a lot of UEFA Cup games) and like everyone knows so much potential.
So why shouldnt we develop him instead of using a temporary solution and only waste time.

The talk about Pander for example. Seriously, his main strength is set pieces but we have now a good one for this with Trochowski and maybe Marin in future too.
Our set pieces were really ok in the last games so it wouldnt be SUCH a huge improvement with Pander.
He is also not a very technical player and compared to Lahm or Castro his build up play is simply bad, not to mention his defence weaknesses.
Then noone shouldnt forget that he is really injury prone so we would put our hopes into a player who might be injured most of the time.
I'd even prefer Jansen or M. Schäfer if we are talking about moving Lahm to the right.
Still i'd prefer Castro over both and thus not even the need to move a perfectly working Lahm.

 

I know he is only 20 but I'm worried that Castro could end up as a player who always missed out because of questionable decision making by the NT coach. I hope I'm wrong and Castro continues what he did last season so he stands out to the point where he cannot be ignored any more.

 

No need to be nice man, he is clearly better than both and any RB for Germany atm. No need to hold back at all, that's the absolute truth. Only way he would be 2nd best RB is if Lahm was moved as a RB. He still has flaws mind you, but he's only 20 and already great.

 

I hope so too. It would be sad to leave a player of Castro's caliber out of the NT setup.

 

right now I think Andreas Beck stock is rising ,what do u guys think of him

 

He's got more work to do than Castro if he wants a spot in the NT set up.

 

The art of defending seems to have been lost in this country. Not just the national team, this is pretty obvious in the league also, and it costs us, especially in the cup competitions in Europe.

It's paradox. Nowadays, we have a ton of exciting attacking players coming through, but one of our traditional strenghts, the central defence, is more or less in shambles, compared to better days at least. We really need to work on this, you simply can't win anything without a stable and reliable defence, which does not just start with the defenders, of course.

 

On a more positive note, Mertesacker had a good game against Bayern yesterday. Really time for him to make his comeback in the national team also, he has been missed.

Metzelder is more or less finished at Real, and needs to find a new club first before he'll become a real contender for the starting position again. So it's all about finding the right partner for Mertesacker in the coming months, and letting the new central defence gel. Someone with different strenghts, someone more mobile and agile.

 

this should be in the NT player performance thread