The entire backline needs to be reworked. Jerome Boateng needs to play as CB. From what we've seen so far, Hummels is probably best suited to be his partner. Badstuber and Mertesacker are not worthy of starting. If Heyneckes doesn't feel that Badstuber is good enough to start for Bayern at CB than there's no reason for Jogi to think there is. Second, revisit the Lars Bender experiment from earlier this summer when he was played at right-back where he looked fantastic! He bombs up the pitch as well or better than Lahm and is more competent defensively. Isn't there a little bird that can whisper in Jogi's ear "Hey, remember how well Lars looked at RB against the Danes?" (Mind you, he wasn't available yesterday) Cheers.
Do you have the statistics for this? Then again, that doesn't mean squat, you'd have to compare the number of duels won by Kroos, and compare them to those made by Khedira. Kroos gets into the thick of things, but isn't quick to react, as khedira would be. Neuer had a horrible game, but that doesn't happen too often. Ultimately I think its an issue of mental fortitude than just ability. Kroos has his position and use, but at the moment he's just not fit enough to be playing CM.
Badstuber is far superior to boateng, there is a reason why he's a fixture for the left side of any defense he's played on. Heynckes does feel that badstuber is good enough, but its just that no one except him can play as a left back, which he's done an OK job with considering he's a towering defender with no pace. Badstuber hasn't played CB once this season, he's just rusty and needs to get sometime in his position. He's just 23, and bound to make errors.
I'm of the notion that Boateng has the higher ceiling between him and Badstuber. He makes more mistakes than Badstuber right now and doesn't play as fantastic of long balls, but he's a much better athlete, can make ridiculous tackles and defensive plays when he's in position, and is no slouch on the ball either. In time I could see a Hummels-Boa partnership play out similarly for the NT to the Hummels-Subotic partnership for Dortmund, where both are mobile, strong, well rounded backs, but Hummels has more offensive freedom to move forward and play more aggressive passes. This is one of the biggest issues with how young we are, defense is something that takes a lot of time and experience, so all of our top options make mistakes you don't want them making, that's why I think it might be good to just see what our most talented lineup can do with some time together.
Badstuber will remain at his position because of his awareness, he sees the attack coming long before it happens, his athleticism is far inferior to Boateng, that's true - but his intelligence is really admirable. I doubt we'll ever see this happen anytime soon anyways because Boateng has been relegated to an entirely different role in the NT.
Our leaders were perfectly capable before everyone turned on them because they weren´t able to do what noone else in DFB history has done...beat Italy, thus undermining their authority in the process (and even before). The difference is, Beckenbauer led guys like Maier and Müller in their primes, Lahm leads a bunch of 22-year-old millionaires. On the way, they broke a world-record for most wins in a row, and did so with some of the most beautiful football on the planet. Quite frankly, where do some of you guys get this entitlement from, that you believe we somehow "deserve" to win an international cup? Don´t you think it´s possible that you´re simply a victim of the hype around some of our players? Where are the strikers? Where are the full-backs? Noone knows, noone cares, they´re all occupied with creaming themselves because our attacking midfield is so..."promising". These "media experts" who are now proclaiming the "end of german efficiency" or "it´s all Jogi´s fault" and "we need a new Effenberg" are the same people who declared us odds-on favourites before the tourney, even in the knowledge that it would be a historical achievement if such a young team could actually win it all. "But we had every right to think so after the WC 2010", they will say. Do people remember that noone (especially the "experts") gave this team any chance before said WC, and that it was Jogi who trusted them and who played a big part in our success in South Africa? Do you guys remember that we played a Euro finals game in 2008 with the likes of Metzelder and Clemens Fritz? It´s the oldest play in the book, they first build up unrealistic expectations and then try to put the blame on the coach if these expectations aren´t met. It´s absurd how everyone seems perfectly fine with making fun of the media experts or the hype around young players, yet they all seem to buy into it and are crying foul if the results are exactly what you´d expect from such a young team. Even more depressing, they will all love to tell you that Mertesacker should be replaced by Badstuber and Podolski should make room for Schürrle, making the team even younger. I can´t wait until people want to replace Hummels for the next flavour of the month in 2 years. Yeah, let´s get rid of Jogi and his "tactical ineptitude", sounds like a great idea. What´s with all this "4 men at the back" and "time spent on the ball" nonsense he introduced to german football, anyway, huh? Maybe it´s time you guys sit back, relax, and understand that most other nations in the world would kill for the success we´ve had over the last 8 years, whether the names on the field were Metzelder and Fritz or Özil and Götze, that the only constant between these two teams is Jogi and his staff, and that, considering the age of the current team, it´s fair to assume that the best is yet to come.
great point See its easy to forget that Effenberg lost versus Utd in 1999 and won via the lottery of penalties in 2001. Ditto the 'great leader' Khan, who also lost a worldcup final. Meanwhile Ballack has an undeserved reputation as a loser - more thanks to John Terry than anything else. There is a lot of rubbish talked about this.
LOL Don't forget that as a kiwi - England is one of our oldest rivals and I have spent a lifetime (via Rugby) laughing at the very English notion that if only the players had played with heart and passion, they could somehow compensate for their lack of technical ability.
Or play with 3 central midfielders. if you are trying to close a game down, why not remove Ozil (who often fades anyway), sub in a CM and move Kroos forwards? Mueller also does an excellent job as a hardworking 10. Is it really surprising that the wheels fall off when you have 3 attacking midfielders on the pitch at the same time as well as Reus and Klose? I think you cannot do that sort of thing unless you have defenders like prime Rio Ferdinand and Sol Campbell, and at least one full back who is excellent 1:1
It worked _perfectly_ for 60 minutes with these players. Even after the break the play continued with Özil's goal as a direct result. Until this moment Sweden didn't shoot for a single time on the German goal - in the end they had 4 shots on goal and 4 goals. The idea of Löw to reincarnate the momentum that put Sweden quite for 60 minutes is not wrong and that's also more true with the defensive players we had on the bench for alternative more defensive oriented subs. Götze is very good in pressing and interceptions, he is also capable of forcing the other team to sit deeper in their own half. Podolski is playing very good in his defensively approach in London. Löw wanted to inject self confidence into this team and the original good working tactic when he made his subs. It's easy to say that these were the wrong decisions afterwards. Since when is the current German team capable of absorbing pressure at all? What a sign would that have been and how would the media have react if such a game get lost 4-3? Or worse? The real mistake was to not use his last sub in injury time. That cost the win. But hey, I'm not unlucky that this match didn't end "positive". It's a great chance a truely wake up call. They showed brilliant football for 60 minutes but this is just not enough.
Although it was obvious how open the team was even in the first half - but Sweden weren't playing well. The thing about Mueller is he provides at least some protection for his fullback - and as you correctly point out Podolski is a superb defensive drone. Reus provided little protection defensively - and we already saw the defensive muddles Götze got into with Schmelzer vs Austria In hindsight Poldi should have come in earlier.
Another hindsight for the attitude was that even in the most critical moments the players didn't even commit fouls. They totally lost their physical shape.
Badstuber is only playing as LB for Bayern because David Alaba and Diego Contento were out injured. He will be slotted back into CD pretty soon now that Alaba is regaining fitness.
This is one thing that I've always disliked about Loew. He doesn't want his teams committing fouls, but I think it results in a lack of aggression when needed.
This may have been more a case of being one of those "freak" moments in football than anything else. The issue was that we were missing another CM to play in a 3 man midfield to help contain the Swede's from over running us.
It's normal to get overconfident and take your foot off when you have such a big lead, it happens all the time. The extent of how they did it is the real problem though and just how much it got to them. They completely fell apart and never recovered. Coming from 2 down is normal, from 3 is pretty rare, but from 4 is almost unheard of, thats why you saw all the reactions you did. Some of them are way off and just not applicable but there is something to be said about how often this team falters under pressure. Maybe its a matter of youth or tactics but theres no question that its really worrying.
Is that really the reason? You can't possibly believe that. It's common knowledge the media are full of starved wolves who can affect players and some players can be affected but it's not a major talking point when we are talking about problems that have their roots in management. Keep in mind, this is my main argument. Less about the players who have the talent but more about how awfully they are used. Our players are more than capable of winning a tournament these days. International football as a whole has dropped. A lot. There are not many great teams left. There is really one great team, we all know who they are. We do well reaching the latter stages of tournaments but the main argument here is not so much that we inherently deserve it but moreso that there seems to be a trajectory for progression that is ignored or messed with bye management. Whereas we had a good idea of where this team goes two years ago, we now can just guess because that's how volatile a state Loew and co have left us right now. Of course we can all dismiss this talk if he somehow, magically transforms and gets rid of those traits. Many of us have talked in depth about the lack of completeness in this team. I completely agree. Clamoring for the old guard is the wrong thing to do. This is a new generation who shouldn't be forced to be someone else. Neither should they be criticized for their 'indifference' which I think is rubbish. These players obviously care. The problem lies elsewhere. Let's be very clear here and properly contextualize history. Loew took long enough to even switch to a 4-2-3-1. You can make the argument that he only introduced retention after van Gaal introduced it to Bayern. Moreover whatever retention is taught is WRONG. We are playing negative retention. We don't keep the ball to build attacks, we keep the ball so we can keep it from the opponent because we are so bad defending attacks. In addition, we can't control matches under pressure THE MOST IMPORTANT TRAIT OF RETENTION. Loew is also unwilling to experiment tactically. He shit his pants after the Ukraine match. He doesn't integrate players fast enough and insists on hanging on to dead weight or placing importance on players to simply give them time. We don't have a solution to the Klose problem yet, the WC not far away. We have not figured out how to properly integrate our midfield and there are dozens more problems that Loew overlooks because our attack is full of talent. But again, let's be very clear. Just because he's done some things right, doesn't mean he's done a lot wrong and continues to, to this day. What kind of an argument is this? I think we are all grateful for the talent we have. Expectations are relative. You will expect to win if you're a Barcelona fan as opposed to a Real Betis fan, no? Comes with the territory. Naturally the best is still to come. The players we have at their peak will be excellent but it's also about steering the ship in the right direction to benefit that. We can't rely on our players to get the experience from their clubs and Loew just gets the benefits. He must change with the times as well and make the right changes, abandon what's old and implement the new when it's necessary. He waits so long to change things that it hurts the time. We're lucky the players are still young for that matter, otherwise we would have other problems to deal with.
Anyone else actually watched it on German Television (ARD)? I thought it was ridiculous, how cocky the commentator was (dunno who it actually was). He was always repeating "it´s incredible how shy and afraid the Swedes are in front of that enormous german machine" and "that respect must be mind blowing"...stuff like that. But he only said that untile the 60th minute Seriously, as it was 4-0 for us still, I thought this guy has to shut the hell up. We already realised that we must be the most awesome team on the planet. Kinda ironic that the commentator was just as cocky as the players
I think Cashed is right that this team lacks any genuine All Timers through the spine right now. There is Lahm maybe, and Klose is old. For the rest - it is too early to say, or they are not in the class. Its a far cry from say France 2000 where there are multiple All Timers and then guys like Vieira emerging....
We'll see these guys and the team do well just as long as you're all willing to wait several years. None are even close to their prime yet and with the likes of Schweinsteiger, Lahm, Podolski and Mertesacker we'll continue to get what we see.
Rethy is a ZDF guy. It was Bartels, Tom Bartels. I think he's one of the better commentators. I simply cant stand Steffen Simon. I also have to ad that the crowd inside the stadium sang "sooooo ein Tag, so wunderschön wie heute" more than one time before the 60th minute. Think no one of soccer Germany thought, right in the middle of this euphoria, the Swedes would come back. So everybody has been a bit cocky....
I think the team at the moment is incapable of drying a game completely after taking a meaningful lead. That's why they concede so many goals in the last two years. Like Bayern did against City at home - scored 2 and after HT just took the ball and never gave it away. Bayern just suffocated City in 45 minutes. That was a brilliant dominant display of their superiority. I don't understand why NT can't stick to more possession-based game when they're winning. One sport psychologist said the NT clearly switched their personal and collective brain from the game they're still playing to something in the past or future. Maybe considering what would they say to the media afterwards. The thing is if you did that you can't just switch to the present at will. I thought he said also that Jogi should have changed the strategy at HT to keep the team awake until final whistle. BTW the old guard wasn't too harsh on the NT. I think Kahn's words "uniquely stupid" about the draw were quite mild...