What players make the backbone of our squad for the NT

This is a loaded topic.

It's hard to narrow it down to just four "key" players. Unlike other NT, Klinsmann and Loew created a system where every player is a cog in the system, one that lives and breathes together. All players depend on each other to make things work on the pitch.

If Germany are going to win the tournament this summer players like Klose, Ballack, Mertesacker and Frings will have to play really really well. Modern football is all about midfield control and neutralizing the opponent. Frings and Ballack will have to do that in addition to attacking. Klose is our main source of goals of course. Every successful team needs a top class goalscorer in form. Furthermore, we'll need a disciplined and organized defense. There will be teams in the tournament that play a distinct offensive brand of football (Croatia, Portugal to name a few) and we'll need to be ready against them and not make schoolboy errors.

Speaking of young talents for the future. Kroos is a no brainer, not only talent wise but also as a potential leader and center of the team. I'm not so sure about Boateng. I feel funny about him, he seems to have a huge attitude problem and an unhealthy arrogance.

 

kontrol_ball_germany, have you been living on mars for the last year or two?

boateng!

haahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

Merte-Lahm
Ballack-Frings
Klose-Mario

 

1 Mertesacker. Imho the most important player for our squad right now, not so much because he is the greatest player and our game totally relys on him, but because there are no replacements even close to his quality. Especially with Metze injured and not being a starter in Madrid and Lehmann not a starter and not in his best form our defense would be in serious trouble without Mertesacker.

2-4 Ballack, Schneider, Frings. There are lots of very good players for our midfield, replacing anyone of them wouldn't be a big problem, but with 2 or all 3 of them missing, we might lack experienced and talented leaders. Frings is currently injured and it is possible that he won't make it in time for the EURO, Schneider is recovering, but not in form yet and Ballack is in good shape.

other key players:
- Lehmann, I would have played with Enke already last year, but now introducing a new keeper might cause more harm to the team spirit than it's worth.
- Klose, definitely a very important part of the team right now, however with Gomez, Kuranyi, Kießling and Podolski there are so many quality strikers that missing Klose wouldn't do that much harm
- Lahm might be one of the most talented German players right now, however he has not been playing all that great this season so far, partly due to injuries, and there are loads of good German wing defenders: Castro, Westermann, Jansen, Fritz, Schulz...


Prospects for the future:

K-P Boateng seems to make his way in Tottenham, he did play regularly recently, but I haven't seen anything of him there. If he makes it in the EPL, I wouldn't rule him out as a future nt star.

All agree that our biggest prospect is Kroos, most name Marin and Özil as other possible nt starters, J Boateng plays a pretty good season as a defender, he might be one to watch, I have heard that Toni Kroos younger brother Felix would be another great talent, but that's more of a rumour.

 

Mertesacker (never leave us, OMG! What would we do without him!?), Klose, Lahm, Lehmann (bar his Austria meltdown ), Ballack, Frings and Schneider (in top form).

 

"meltdown" finally is a description we can agree on

Regarding Mertesacker, I saw Hummels play for the first time earlier this, he was very solid, and (rather unlike Mertesacker) he seems to play excellent passes out of defense, apparently he has been a mainstay of the U-21 squad already for a while now and he just turned 19 in December, so that looks all very promising (in terms of long-term prospects), although it also says something about our shortage of great centrebacks.

 

Haha, that was a meltdown, can't describe it in another way. But that is the reason why I am not worried. Some goalkeepers clearly are out of form but this was a matter of, shit, big mistake, I'll get that cross, crap, next one! He lost his nerves. Had he not made the first mistake he might have had an excellent game.

The more prospects for the future the better but right now Merte is the man. And he is still young so he has still lots of time left to improve his passing game. It's amazing how calm and reliable he is. Metzelder usually has his fine games when it matters but he is always prone to doing something really stupid despite a good deal of experience.

 

Oh, I wasn't looking for someone to replace Mertesacker, but for someone who might partner him on the long run...

 

In full strength we are pretty good both at the back and up front. Result wise we score a shit load of goals but would also have a fantastic defensive record of not for the Czech Rep. game spoiling it a bit. I blame Hildebrand.

The biggest problem, injuries aside, remains a certain lack of will (surly not a problem during a tournament though) and a lack of experience on some positions. Compared to Italy we are still a young and sometimes naive team.

 

Yes, I would definitly say this is the strongest squad since at least 1998. Just thinking about the dreg of 2000 and especially 2004 just gives me the shivers. brrrrrrrrrrr
Hopefully those days will never ever return.

I think Ballack is still our most important player, following just behind comes Mertesacker. I'm not really concerned about Metzelder, who, at least for me, is nothing special. I think we have more than enough players to replace him. I mean being a Real-Defender is not really an accolade in contrast to their offense. ,)

No, we wont be a contender if half of the top players are missing. Very few teamscould replace such a quality drop off.

I think our offense is better than our defence. The defence of last 2-3 years simply looked shakey at times, while the offense usually scores at least one goal per game usually more.

 

Yes. I'd even say we have the strongest team since 1996, since in 1998 the nt players were already past their prime and overrated.

Depends a bit on who gets injured, like I said, while Metzelder and Mertesacker fit and in form are pretty good, their replacements are not so good, I think the rest could be replaced without too much of a drop in quality, however I wouldn't bet on a team that had little practice together. Bottomline, with 4 or 5 players of the usual starting line up injured, I wouldn't count us as a main contender, but miracles happen.

Since the world cup, I'd actually say we are better in defense than in offense, at least with Mertesacker and Metzelder as center backs. Our offense has no problems crushing minnows, but they struggle as soon as they come across a team that plays with pressing and is good in that. Except for the match against the Czechs and to a lesser extent the Austrians, the defense had less problems imho.