As convincing as the win was, I wasn't too impressed with Germany especially when it came to finishing. Against better defences, chances that Mueller and Ozil missed would be life and death difference. Apart from Mueller, the only other player I was truly impressed by was Boateng. What is the word on Hummel's injury? How I wished Loew put in Klose and he got his 15th WC and 70th German goal!!!
So what are the chances that Löw stays with this lineup and with the umlaut players upfront? Is going to rest some players, field Schürrle or Klose for tactical reasons in the next two games?
I'm not overly surprised with the performance because of a key factor, the 4-3-3 system keeps Germany much more compact, and hats off to the players because it seemed damn hot out there
I hope not, I would leave the team as it is to gel and get better there is always room for better chemistry. I would however bring on subs like he did today ~ 60th min for the one with the least output on the day out of the top 3. I know the hot and humid conditions will probably force more rotations but I hope its through subs and not through different starters.
Löw is a good coach when he has months to prepare for a game. The three opponents in the grouph phase have been known since December, so Löw and his staff had enough time for meticulous planning. It will get more difficult for him to make the right decisions once the knock-out stage is there.
from what i saw from ghana, they are very tough and aggressive team. Their defense isnt good though, but consider how injury prone our players are, we needa watch out with their tackles. Goetze and Oezil have both missed some easy chances. Composure in front of goal and finishing an issue. I think Schuerrle at RW instead of Oezil can help the team in that particular area. Oezil wasn't particularly useful at RW, n in the middle he isn't lethal enough
I hope so too. For playing this fluid and flexible system you kinda need to know each other more than just from training.
So the team wins 4-0 and you post exactly the same stuff you posted before the game How many goals do you expect a team to get vs Portugal Your comment about Ozil makes it clear you don't really watch what is happening on the field
I cannot say I agree about Özil and Götze cause I think they played well. If I was Löw Id field them nevertheless to give the opportunity to use their chances the next time. Could give them a confidence boost. And the Ghanians almost need to win so the space needed could be there. Then later bring on Großkreutz for some fighting back. Since it worked out well, @Fussballer would you start the next game thread?
Some easy chances were missed. Glad we were few goals ahead but imagine if we're facing Brazil, France, Italy, Holland, Argentina or even Spain.....those misses can be costly Oezil missed an absolutely easy one-on-one where he could easy dribble sideway before he impulsively made that bad shot; Goetze also had a good chance but his shot got deflected; Khedira missed an open goal shot which should easily be a goal I am not expecting 8-0 but those were easy chances and should be scored by professionals at this level
Agree People here have short memeories. Just a 4-0 victories and completely forgot some of the easy chances missed. Cant afford to miss those against better opponents
Amazing, Germany beats Portugal by 4 goals and people still bitch about the offense. Seriously, the German offense isn't the problem. As long as our defense holds, I'm optimistic that we can score and win our games. No team has scored more during qualification and again we started with four goals into the tournament.
I swear that the problem is people are statistically illiterate By cherry picking the data that fits the theory (the misses) and ignoring the data that doesn't fit the theory (hattrick for Mueller and Goetze winning a peno) one can decide that the team doesn't score at the correct rate However the obvious problem is that in real life, goals are rare events which are distributed randomly over a larger number of missed opportunities. Goetze missing against Portugal says nothing about whether he will score his next opportunity - unless you have some pre-conceived idea that he should score far more often Even the players who score a large number of goals like Suarez achieve it largely via massive shot volume. Recent studies show that the key performance indicator is generating a large number of chances from good positions which germany are doing It is even arguable that the idea of shot quality might not actually exist. Gareth Bale at Spurs was a good example of this. They changed the team around so that he generated huge shot volume - and at the normal but not remarkable conversion rates this turned into a lot of goals. Players like Mueller and Goetze will score at decent rates provided enough chances are created for them. And that is of course why a player like Ozil is also needed. Shot volume + shot location is the killer app.
Germany wasn't that impressive tbh. I Just saw tactical superiority against a very weak 10 man side with no speed level. Germany had efficiency but no soccer skills, no abbility except some individual action with players like Götze, Özil and Müller. The second half was just a rest for the players. So we can't tell what a tough match with at least 90 minutes would look like. Maybe a team like Brazil could play ping pong with the german team, since the players didn't even control the game after the red card. I hardly didn't see any pressing when Portugal had the ball either. They just wanted to avoid wastefuls runnings but I doubt that Brazil would think about recovery at any time. Tactical awareness won't help the german team in the KO stage, this is the time where you need to improvise and show your abbility. If it's 1 on 1, Germany always comes off second best. But maybe it's too early to talk about KO stage. Now I'm interested what will Germany do when Ghana and USA park the bus.
let's not get carried away about Low and about how good the team was. Lets not forget that they were trashing strong teams in the group stages and in the 1/8,1/4 finals before , before crapping their pants when most needed Low(against Italy...) and the players both. That why i don't get my hopes high like before in the WC 2010 and euro 2012
The match was won by excellent tactics realized via technical superiority. This win is more impressive than anything out of our 2010 WC run. Ghana and USA will not park the bus. Ghana need a win, US will park only if they beat Portugal.
I m sorry but against better opponents and defense, chances are not as much as we had against Portugal. Too many wasted chances can be a potential problem. Thomas Mueller did well so it saved our arses but what will happen if Mueller is having a bad day? There isn't another scoring threat in the lineup so I suggest someone like Schuerrle should be used against certain opponents In some games, u may only have 3-4 good chances, Goetze/Oezil isn't reliable and I think both are sub-par finishers (that's very generous for Oezil btw) at this level. The conversion rate should be higher. As Mueller has said in the post-match interview, he said we should have scored a few more, but apparently some easy chances were missed by Oezil The problem with Oezil in a 4-3-3 is that he isn't good enough defensively as one of the 3 midfielders ; offensively he isn't what u want in the interchanging rotation because he can't play as a frontman as he can't finish and his shooting ability is skeptical
When Müller has a bad day, we still have Podolski, Klose and Schürrle on the bench which is another World Class front line that most teams would love to have and that without taking Reus to the WC or even mentioning Draxler. Secondly, you missed the entire point made by Jitty. The point being that when you create enough chances for the likes of Götze or Özil, they will score. It's a matter of statistics.
Wait what? You've clearly seen a different match. You are wrong at every point you made and using Brazil as a template how to impress at the wc stage or how you should play as a team is just phenomenal absurd - at least after their only match against Croatia.
Better opponents? Portugal is ranked 4th or 5th in the World. What you are missing is that Germany scored 4 goals and decided to turn off the engine for the majority of the 2nd half to conserve energy, avoid injury and practices possession. If they did not, we could have seen 2-3 more goals.