Poor Marco, he's got the worst luck. Let's hope it's nothing serious. Muller took it to heart seemingly, he was reprimanding the player who fouled on Reus and later on committed an obviously egregious foul out of sheer frustration. Could have been a red for that, but the ref stayed level-headed.
Take your fastest player and position him against the slowest defender among the high standing german back four. Feed him with passes into their backs. See chances happen.
I'll always have love for Kroos as the last DDR born star, and Kramer having tusche as his favorite player gives the man maximum respect, but with Howedes in there for Hummels and Rudy on the right that sure as hell isn't enough to keep us secure and sound against counters. Yeah our players are good and exciting but trading chances up and down the pitch with Scottland is not what we should be forced into, and it's all because we're undermanned in front of the back four + Neuer and those five aren't in god mode without Hummels. We need to strengthen that part of the pitch tactically if we want to take advantage of this opportunity that our boys have been handed to accomplish something that not even the legends of the 70s managed. We will be pretty heavy favorites at these euros and we'll deserve it, but there are things we need to sort out before then. Spain will be back with more of that exceptional young talent they wasted in Brazil, France we'll be more experienced, tougher and at home, Italy have a great set of forwards coming through if they can revitalize themselves deeper, Robben may not have run out of steam by then and eventually that Dutch backline has to get sorted, right?, etc. The threats are out there and they will be stronger at the next tourney so we need to sort out the things we managed to get by with in rio, aka undermanning the deeper midfield, the FB situation, not having our attackers getting in each other's way. If we can sort those out, with our talent, we can take anything the opposition throws at us. Anyway fun way to start the new cycle, though we'll need much better as the process goes along. Durm fit in well when I focused on him, boa's really grown by leaps and bounds since Dante first arrived in Munich and is an excellent CB in his own right, Howedes just isn't starter material for us, at any position if we have a choice though as third/fourth CB/utility man he's perfectly fine, just need badstuber to come back or for one of the kids to really make that third CB job their own. Rudy had a pretty assist but sloppy game on the right, I've already gushed about Kramer, Schurrle was a little wasteful and redundant given we could've used the extra body in a deeper role much more, Reus and mueller were great before Reus was hurt, and Gotze was once again underwhelming. Had he been that body used to deeper linking Kramer-Kroos to Schurrle-Reus-mueller in front of him that may well have been different though, as he should be serving a much more Iniesta like 8/10 role for us if we want him to look good for the nt.
I somehow feel this was Löw's fault. Reus just back from injury and he sends him 90 minutes x2 in 5 days.
I've been to the Westfalenstadion before, but it was in the Bayern fan section. I need to go there once when the NT is playing and sit in that yellow wall.
The problem is I never have vacation during the international games, so I need to get creative. I have a study abroad in London in mind, so maybe that will open up the opportunity. For now I'm going to apply for the CL final tickets whenever they go on sale(not sure how this works, but we'll see) and going to see if I can get tickets to follow Germany all of Euro 2016.
I really like UEFAs new intro/outro "European qualifiers". I also liked the pregame show in the player's tunnel . Dunno if the international broadcast showed that too.
I enjoyed how them Pats got man handled by my intelligent Dolphins...boy talk about getting schooled And that nasty Cam Wake....
There is a other sports thread on the bayern board that we use to talk about this stuff if you want to discuss it there with me your open to.. The pats collapsed in the 2nd half, one of the worst 2nd halfs I have ever seen...
The voting for the MOTM for the Qualifier vs Scotland on the DFB-page ended like this... 1st Erik Durm with 41%, 2n Marco Reus with 25%, 3rd Müller with 18%... Manuel Neuer 1 % (133 votes ) Sebastian Rudy 1.4 % (190 votes ) Jerome Boateng 0.9 % (128 votes ) Benedikt Höwedes 1.5 % (201 votes ) Erik Durm 41.4 % (5603 votes ) Toni Kroos 0.5 % (62 votes ) Christoph Kramer 1.4 % (189 votes ) André Schürrle 0.4 % (56 votes ) Marco Reus 25.1 % (3391 votes ) Thomas Müller 18.8 % (2545 votes ) Mario Götze 7.6 % (1033 votes )
Müller should have been MoM but I think it's good the fans give Durm the credit for his first real cap.
Yep nothing special. But that was exactly what made his performance special. Did a decent job at LB, it's his first game etc. - contrary to Rudy he shut his side down. Took a yellow for a foul when Naismith was through. He also always seemed committed - guess that's what people like.
Game was played in Dortmund. That's honestly the only reason I could see for giving Durm the motm award. I thought he looked just as lost as he did against Argentina. Luckily Scotland doesn't have the necessary talent to really expose him.
Durm has the pace to keep up with wing attackers, but his marking can be risky at times. A similar situation happened last season when Dortmund played against Marseilles in the CL group stage. Durm also tripped up a player who had passed him. He needs to work on completing strategic duels and tackles in advance to close-off lanes and reduce the element of risk.