Judging from the last six years, Loew's teams seem to follow a curious tournament routine: 1. His nominations favour the young, but his starting XI favours those with experience. 2. His pre-tournament thinking favours brazen tactical experiments (overly offensive formations, peculiar tactical moves), but by the end of the first round, a balanced formation and starting eleven emerges with unexpected defensive sturdiness and Loew's focus on swift attacking and smart defending appropriately reduced to a guiding philosophy rather than a tactical yoke. 3. Come crunch time (semi-finals or earlier), Loew loses control of the emotional dynamics of the tournament - his team's anxiety is only compensated by the willpower of certain lead players, but in any case the team looks disorganised and relies on its primal football instincts rather than a guiding philosophy or coordinated adaptation to the opponent at hand. It could be worse (Vogts! Voeller!) - as long as we don't have to endure zonal marking at set pieces this time around.
Moreover late in the tournament, Loew's lack of handling the mental side of his side are evoked but moreso his lack of grasp on the tactical side of his side are exposed as well. All the pre-tournament tinkering is meaningless if nothing comprehensive is drawn from it. His experimentations have been overstated. He didn't really experiment much at all. One bad performance with one set-up never saw him use it or an alteration again, etc. He is extremely timid in changing what is familiar, which is why we see him return to what he feels he can be comfortable with, not necessarily because that's what works but because he lacks the ability to evolve the side and take it beyond what currently seems to be functional.
Did del Bosque experiment a lot before the World Cup, or make a lot of game changing substitutions? He very rarely changed what was familiar, and the fact that the same 11 started every knockout WC game indicates that, there were a couple different key substitutions there: Llorente, Navas, Fabregas, but never doing something completely unfamiliar. It was the same four years ago, where the only main change was the omission of Villa because of injury, which involved a slight change of shape, but didn't create radically different results for them. Before that we can look at Greece playing the same side, and style, with slight adjustments, and going on to win it, or Italy's team that feature the non-changing core (Buffon-Cannavarro-Pirlo-Totti-Toni) and the same style throughout. Not saying that we should only look to imitate those teams but the top sides don't change things radically for a reason, and even among club sides it can be tremendously hard even when they practice full time together (see Andre Villas-Boas at Chelsea, as well as Mourinho's first season at Madrid). With national sides it's always most important to have a solid foundation of midfield and defense that can work well as a unit, not necessary with a set line-up, but within a clear system (this is why 4-4-1-1/4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1 aren't overly different, they both defend with the defense, the two deepest midfielders and the two wide players) that is why Löw is sticking with what very nearly worked in South Africa and Austria/Switzerland and relying on the fact that the squad will be more settled, have better quality players (Reus for Marin, Götze for Cacau, Schürrle for Kießling, Bender for Trochowski, Hummels for Tasci, etc.) and the experience to carry them through. You can argue about Löw's limits as a tactician or man-motivator but he laid the foundation for a fantastic team in South Africa and I fully expect him to build on that this summer.
Spain and Italy examples are off because they were finished sides, finished products with players at their absolute peaks. There was little to do except instill mentality and discipline. This German side has been in transition and are certainly not the finished product. We have barely found our defense yet and continue to look for answers in the striker position. Moreover we lack a clear tactical alternative and we have yet to see this side step up mentally when they are asked. I think Loew has done well, no question but his flaws have been understated as a result.
That was the squad of world cup 2010 11 Miroslav Klose (FC Bayern München) since 2002 16 Philipp Lahm (FC Bayern München) since 2004 10 Lukas Podolski (1. FC Köln) since 2004 7 Bastian Schweinsteiger (FC Bayern München) since 2004 17 Per Mertesacker (Werder Bremen) since 2006 23 Mario Gomez (FC Bayern München) since 2008 14 Holger Badstuber (FC Bayern München) since 2010 20 Jerome Boateng (Hamburger SV) since 2010 6 Sami Khedira (VfB Stuttgart) since 2010 18 Toni Kroos (Bayer Leverkusen) since 2010 13 Thomas Müller (FC Bayern München) since 2010 1 Manuel Neuer (FC Schalke 04) since 2010 8 Mesut Özil (Werder Bremen) since 2010 12 Tim Wiese (Werder Bremen) since 2010 Those are not in the squad anymore 4 Dennis Aogo (Hamburger SV) 22 Jörg Butt (Bayern München) 19 Cacau (VfB Stuttgart) 3 Arne Friedrich (Hertha BSC Berlin) 2 Marcell Jansen (Hamburger SV) 9 Stefan Kießling (Bayer 04 Leverkusen) 21 Marko Marin (Werder Bremen) 5 Serdar Tasci (VfB Stuttgart) 15 Piotr Trochowski (Hamburger SV)
That's misleading in that it gives the year of the first tournament, many of the "2010" players had made their debuts in qualifying (i.e. in 2009) and to lump them in with Müller who actually played with Germany for the very first time in 2010 makes the squad look less experienced, in addition, the players you indicate who are no longer in the squad include two second choice players, one first-11 who was probably playing his last tournament anyway, and the rest are all backups. Lastly, a quick perusal of the relevant Wikipedia entries shows that Italy's squad for the 2006 World Cup has 13 (Thirteen) different players from their 2004 team. Spain's team in 2008 had 10 new faces from 2006, and their 2010 group saw 9 new faces, (with seven new boys from 2008 retained). Yes, that means that there were positions where Spain had no continuity from 2006 to 2010, and only one of those was goalkeeper, in addition, players like Pique, Pedro, Navas, and Busquets were playing in tournament for the first time, Pedro had made his debut that year (2010) as well, while previous first team fixtures like Senna and Marchena (massively important to the defensive shape) were gone and relegated to the bench respectively. As for players at their peak, I refer you to Joan Capdevila, as well as Busquets (who we only regard as brilliant because of what he started at the WC and then continued, rather than the form he brought into the tournament and then continued on with after.
Does not mean anything. Yesterday they trained in two trainings groups. That did not say anything, too - so Poldi, Müller and Özil where in one together with Schweinsteiger, Lahm, Boateng, Gündogan and Hummels.
I think the greatest improvement for this team tactically will be the ability to bring on players like Gotze, Reus, and Schurrle rather than Piotr Trochowski. There are also other more minor advantages this team has over Germany teams in the past. Having quality CMs in Bender and Gundogan can allow Schweinsteiger and Khedira to get a rest and not have to play 90 minutes every match. Mesut Ozil is no longer the only source of creativity. Gotze and Kroos are both capable of picking out passes in the final third - Kroos had 21 assists this season and Gotze would have probably topped that if he were healthy. Last but not least, two words; Mats Hummels. It has been a long time since Germany has had a center back as dynamic as Hummels. If he doesn't start it will be a travesty. And that from a Bayern fan...
What's with Schürrle? He always seems like he could replace Podolski with ease, but apparently he's had a bad season for his club? As for our problems in offence, a certain tabloid reported Götze as outstanding in training last week, but since he didn't get any minutes despite yesterday's performance, I guess he won't save us this summer.