There was a little gap between Lahm's arm and his body the same as Kewell and it hit the upper arm in both incidents as well.
The problem is, the rules don't allow that. Given the rules as they are, I wouldn't have given the Kewell penalty either. But if he gives the penalty, the ref also has to give the red...I guess the rules need some reworking there...
This has nothing to do with favorite players, as I haven't exactly called for Klose to start for Bayern last season if I remember. It's a problem, a big one obviously. It doesn't make me happy that we have to rely on Klose but it might be what Germany has to do. Otherwise take another huge gamble and start either Gomez or Kiessling... There is the potential formation of putting Podolski up front and starting Kroos, but then there is the question of can Podolski play as a main forward since he's a SS by nature and if Kroos can handle starting, and whether it's good to have all 3 play makers starting in the ages of 20, 20 & 21.
Bang on! Excellent insight into the game. Podolski and Mertesacker proved to be the two weak links. Boateng on the other hand was quite strong. I felt Ghanian players gave him too much respected almost; he was quite effective in neutralizing their attack. An accomplishment considering the speed and skill of their team.
I look at it the other way. Podolski's weaknesses ( other than his pathetic finishing) in this WC are because he has Badstuber/Boateng behind him. He has to track back a lot of times, to cover up for them.And he's done a good job at that. Winning the ball from deep many a times. I don't see Marin doing that at all, thereby increasing the pressure on Badstuber/Boateng. People are being too harsh on Podolski. If it were Lahm playing as a LB, you'd see a much more 'free spirited' Podolski. What is? Another example: Kenya. Adjective- Kenyan and not Kenyian. But that could be because 'y' is a semi vowel.
[QUOTE=poorvi;21115936]I look at it the other way. Podolski's weaknesses ( other than his pathetic finishing) in this WC are because he has Badstuber/Boateng behind him. He has to track back a lot of times, to cover up for them.And he's done a good job at that. Winning the ball from deep many a times. I don't see Marin doing that at all, thereby increasing the pressure on Badstuber/Boateng. People are being too harsh on Podolski. If it were Lahm playing as a LB, you'd see a much more 'free spirited' Podolski. Podolski's weaknesses have nothing to do with whose playing behind him. If that were true, he has no excuse to explain his poor performance against Ghana, in which he was capably backed up by J. Boateng. Podolski has looked like a regional league player the last two times out and is proving to be the one of the two weak links in the German squad. He shows no ingenuity with the ball at his feet, he can't hit the net, he doesn't use his teammates well, and his passes often go astray. Quite honestly, I'm shocked at how little technique this player has. About the only thing he can do is run, run hard towards the team's goal. Is there any doubt that if he'd been Oezil, he would have blown it wide than find the back as deftly as Oezil did.
Lahm played behind Podolski plenty of times and he was still ....well....Podolski. I think it's fair to say that Podolski's biggest problem is ....Podolski.
I'm surprised at the pesimism of some posters... Germany didn't play badly. The main problem were some mistakes by Mertesacker that if playing against a better strikers would very probably meant a goal. We didn't see much of Podolski either... but I saw somewhere a picture of him hugging Lahm (2008?) and felt bad about being angry at him, lol. I think maybe he just was lacking confidence because of last game. Surly no one felt as bad as him about having missed those chances and penalty. I have to say it worries me to think of the CL final... many of the same players, and they didn't really seemed to do anything, except having the ball and passing it around... only Robben looked any good as far as I remember... we do have Özil though. Why isn't Lahm playing as LB?. In what position does he play at Bayern?.
Why always these unecessary retrospectives about past games? I have seen pretty much every team struggle like Bayern did against Inter in this World Cup. Its part of the game and get this: This is not Bayern! This is the NT and therefore a whole different team. Yes there are many of the same players, but the tactics are different. The players have said so themselves.
Oh no sorry, im not getting upset. It just my way of arguing sometimes. Im sorry if I came across in a rude way.
No offense but.. Germany didn't play badly?? After watching the excruciating performance of the German NT yesterday I had a bittersweet moment after being extremely impressed by Slovakia and Japan in particular today. I was like, wow, I wish we could play like that! They were constantly attacking, the players were eager to score goals and they created many opportunities. We were a sleepish team bordering on boredom yesterday. We had what, two opportunities (both by Ozil) and we were lucky that we materialized on one of the two? Come on, that was absolutely not how Germany is supposed to play!
Is this team better than Bayern? I ask this skeptically as a Werder Fan. This isn't exactly Meier-Beckenbauer-Mueller-Breitner-Grabowski, et al... (My favorite team, I was in country for the entire tournament.) These kids are YOUNG! They won. And, they are going to beat those nasty old codgers from the Monarchy because they are young. Some of us in the colonies STILL hate the old country.
Its definetly not better, but that goes for any nation atm. You just cant compare club to NT level its two different things. This team is very different from the recent ones of the late 90s and 2000s. They just need to gel. It will be interesting to see how they fare against England.