Germany - South Korea I-- 27 June --I 3rd Group Game

Put a facemask on it and let him play if he can. We need him.

Goretzka's too raw. I'd rather see Gündoğan.

 

It's interesting given what we heard about the "bling bling gang', if the vaunted 2014 multi-kulti has failed in squad

Case by case, decisions can all be justified on football grounds, but in helicopter view it looks concerning

Sane: Couldn't fit with squad culture despite break out season at elite side
Can: played in CL final but left at home
Ozil: questionable motivations, "uncomfortable in shirt"
Gundo: questionable loyalty
Boateng: Bling bling brand boy with 600 pairs of shoes
Khedira - bling bling but Low loyalitst

Note I am not saying Low is being racist but that his squad seems to have become divided in an unhealthy way - and especially the bitter media attacks on the players seem to single out the bling bling group

At the time I did not question the Sane decision much as he had never looked good for germany - but in hindsight it is surely concerning that such a talent can't fit with the culture of the team. Is he a difficult person? or has the culture become hard to fit in with?

I wonder if the retirements of Lahm, Schweini, Poldi and Merte have been more significant than we think?

 

Hongistein on the hot mess Kroos plucked from the fire

Kroos' comments seem particular barbed re Basler and co

A rift in the squad. Too many old players. Wrong tactics. Wrong attitude. The spartan team camp in Moscow. Everyone would have blamed everyone and everything for Germany's worst World Cup in 80 years but, worst of all, not everybody would have really cared all that much.

A strange sense of un-involvement and disengagement at home has accompanied the team to Russia, made up of many different factors such as unease about the political motives of the host nation, terribly overblown marketing speak by the German FA and many players coming across as one-man brand ambassadors, more interested to collect social media followers than to connect with their public.

On top of all that, the undead army of "proper football men" from the 1980s and 1990s -- the Stefan Effenbergs and Mario Baslers -- who have always distrusted Low's cultured ways and the current generation of quiet, technical professionals, felt encouraged by the bad start to snipe at the team from sidelines.

Some of the attacks on Mesut Ozil -- "he seems to feel unhappy in the German FA shirt," Lothar Matthäus told Bild -- carried dark political undertones, too. For all those reasons, the climate surrounding the national team has not been this cold since Jürgen Klinsmann and his assistant Low had rung in a revolution in playing style and built a multi-cultural blend of good old Germanic values and migratory-flavoured flair.

"I had the feeling that relatively many people in Germany would have been happy if he had got knocked out today," Kroos said after the match. "But we won't make it that easy for them."

He explained that those words were directed at a press "that doesn't help" and at the pundits back home, not the supporters in the streets and in front of the televisions.

But in truth, those delineations have long blurred. The country -- in football and beyond -- has been gripped by divisive forces, feeding on fear. It doesn't feel like a coincidence that Angela Merkel, whose chancellorship began one year before the 2006 World Cup romance, appears on the brink this summer -- just as football chancellor Low was on Saturday, with a few seconds to go.​

 

If it's racial in nature, and racial minority players are having difficulty, how do you explain Rüdiger being put in place of Mats instead of Süle? No one would've even questioned it if Süle, the established Bayern man, was chosen over Antonio, surely?

 

Please read my post more carefully.

I am not saying Low is picking the team based on racial factors.

I am saying the squad seems to be divided that way and he has to deal with it.

 

Of course this could all be wildly exaggerated by SportBild - but in which case the efforts to portray such a racial split with Sane's omission as a trigger point is pure evil.

Basically the scapegoating of all the brown players plus "wigger" Drax

so which is it?

Kroos means we don't get the goss for some more weeks

 

Speilverlangerung took a very positive view on the control Rudy brought to the game by having a dedicated 6

Rough translation

They took the view that Germany's tail off after a fast start was the problems we have seen before in terms of poor spacing and players crowding forward in a line.

https://spielverlagerung.de/2018/06/24/deutschland-schweden-wm/

 

Okay, but I guess in that case does it make sense to speculate in that manner? Unless we were in that locker room we don't know. As you yourself state, there are football reasons for every decision made, and the media reporting can be agenda-driven. If you want to say that the presence of Podolski, Lahm, and Bastian in 2014 kept the locker room intact and stopped these flare-ups, fine, but I don't think a team that has been united in mulit-cultural ideals since 2010 would break that easily and it would've splintered the team before this point if that were the case. The likes of Boateng and Özil have been with the team for some time, and Ilklay too. Granted the Erdoğan thing created issues, but I tend to feel it's more smoke than fire.

 

I did not anticipate ever saying this, but Rudy is key to this squad. Without him the calculus to achieving balance and consistent control in midfield becomes much more difficult.

 

Yes - that all could be true

But then in which case, the media's efforts to create the perception are quite disgusting.

Especially the attacks on Boateng - focussing often on his personal lifestyle

 

I don't think so within the team.

i think in the media it has become a problem - hence the interesting parallels between the decline of Merkel and Low and the nasty attacks on certain players

One interesting point, was that with Ozil out of the team, the focus of the English media coverage was to trash Boateng - including about his shoe collection.

And of course Sterling gets the same treatment over there, as does Pogba.

As for poor body language

What! A! Fight! 💪🏼🔥 We are one team - on and off the pitch. No matter what they say. 😎 #DieMannschaft #BestNeverRest #HereToCreate #GERSWE @woodyinho pic.twitter.com/GA6UauaOT4

— Mesut Özil (@M10) June 23, 2018

 

Can't see Rudy playing again during the WC.