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10 Conclusions: Croatia 2-1 Germany

June 12th, 2008 | By: Jan | 18 Comments »

Marcell Jansen Fussballgott 1. Croatia had a great game. They were very aggressive and didn’t give Germany time on the ball. Once Germany threatened to start their quick passing game and one-twos they committed fouls and broke the rhythm again. Just like Poland they happily exploited Jansen’s left flank and when Löw decided to play Odonkor as a right-back they exploited that as well. I guess there was more to their tactics that was spot on, but you should head over to the Croatia blog to discuss it in detail.

2. Germany had a horrible game. As mentioned above, Croatia were one of the reasons, the others are a bit of a mystery to anyone who watched the game. Laurie put it this way: “Germany’s playing like they were up partying all night.” Everything was quite static and once you saw the players sending clueless long balls in the Croatian box, you had the distinct feeling that this won’t end well.

3. Since Austria drew with Poland, Croatia have been confirmed as group B winners. Germany needs a draw or a win against Austria to book a quarter final clash with Portugal. Yummy. Portugal will have an extra day to regenerate and they can afford to give their bench-warmers a runout. Michael Ballack is yellow carded going into the Austria clash. That’s the price you pay for such a match.

4. Bastian Schweinsteiger’s red card has been a long time coming – not in this match, but in general. Whether it’s for the national team or for Bayern, Schweinsteiger often loses it in high pressure situations. He has sent elbows in other players faces, committed horror tackles and did other questionable things. Oddly enough, he got away with it because the referees either didn’t see it or thought a yellow card was enough. So to be honest, I’m happy he eventually got punished and hopefully people will start giving him some of those anger management pills Josip Simunic has been taking.

5. Mario Gomez spent most of his match in Croatia’s offside trap. He otherwise had one good run into the box, but failed to produce a killer pass. In short, he is a flop.

6. Lukas Podolski simply can’t celebrate his goals. Either he’s scoring against his country of birth or his goal is too little too late. Let’s hope he can eventually score a goal this tournament that he can actually celebrate. What a sad golden boot winner he would end up being otherwise.

7. Jogi Löw had no umbrella, it wasn’t raining and it wasn’t Wembley. But when he brought on Odonkor to take Fritz’ role on the right midfield side and when he then replaced Fritz with Kuranyi and allowed Odonkor to act as a right-back, you knew that even the coach had his off-day.

8. Jansen already had his second off-day and his latest one should be enough to end his starting XI career this tournament. So it’s Lahm back on his World Cup 2006 position.

9. Michael Ballack talked a lot with his players but that did nothing to change the run of play. Nor did he manage to dictate the rhythm of the match at any point in the game.

10. Jens Lehmann probably had a solid game. Nonetheless, I like to blame him for Croatia’s second goal. While the ball took a deflection, it was always going to end up somewhere near Lehmann’s post, and Lehmann should have taken care of it.

Tags: Bastian Schweinsteiger, Croatia, David Odonkor, Euro 2008, Group B, Jens Lehmann, Jogi Löw, Lukas Podolski, Marcell Jansen, Mario Gomez, Michael Ballack

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Comments

By harriet | June 13th, 2008 at 12:28 am

You are absolutely right,Jan. We had a horrible game and everybody’s not playing up to their best. I think Lahm and Poldi were the only ones okay in this match. Well the defeat it’s a bit hard to take but Croatia IS the better team, no doubt.

Posted from Hong Kong

By Mic | June 13th, 2008 at 12:43 am

Strongly disagree on Germany having a “horrible game”. It obscures how good a job Croatia has done. Germany plays extremely consistently (probably its major asset) and today was no exception. For this and certain other reasons, Germany’s record is terrific: I’ve seen countless mediocre games by Germany which it nonetheless won.
A couple of offside decisions gone the other way, a little bit of luck, and Poland too could have done what Croatia did today. It’s really more the Germany hype (e.g. personified by Ballack) which creates such ’surprises’.
More often than not, soccer is an unjust game, in that beautiful play is not rewarded (see Russia’s drubbing by Spain). Today it was, mostly due to Croatia playing both skillfully and smartly.

Posted from United States

By Jan | June 13th, 2008 at 1:19 am

Mic: if you read my first conclusion you may have noticed that I gave Croatia credit for the great job they’ve done and after stating that Germany had a horrible game I also said that Croatia were one of the reasons why that was the case. I can’t hand out more love than that because I strongly disagree that Germany is “extremely consistent” and always plays on the same level. It’s an interesting thought that all of Germany’s results in the past were basically dependent on how well their opponents were playing that day, while Germany’s game always stayed exactly the same. It’s just not a realistic assessment.

By The England | June 13th, 2008 at 3:20 am

This result has cheered up this England fan (sorry). It shows how good the Croatia team is who of course were in England’s qualification group.

Posted from Switzerland

By Olic | June 13th, 2008 at 8:24 am

next game, germany should really put poldi in the striker position replace that bloody mario gomez. they must improve on their passing skills. yesterday was one of the worst germany’s game that i have ever seen.

Posted from Malaysia

By badboy | June 13th, 2008 at 8:41 am

i don’t think that Germany was “extremely consistent” …. i think that they played much better in Poland game.

Posted from Lebanon

By Intan | June 13th, 2008 at 9:04 am

It was the France-Romania game all over again, wasn’t it? Much worse maybe, since Germany did concede two goals. Here’s my two cents on the game. (:

What Croatia did right:

1. played agressive football that may not be very easy on the eyes, but hey, it worked.

2. their defense was shit-tight after they scored their first goal. second goal was a plus.

3. tactics. what you can’t make up in talents, you make up in tactics. and luck has it, joachim loew had his off-day. slaven bilic has his men playing in a football style that is obviously uncomfortable to the germans, stealing their passes and pressuring them whenever one of the germans had the ball. their defense was reminscent that of romania in their opening game–hard to crack. not only that, slaven bilic realised that germans played their offensive through their left. he did something about that, and it was something right that subdued the already frustated germans.

What Germany did wrong:

1. Gomez, Odonkor, Kuranyi. Far from proving themselves, and Gomez was exceptionally disappointing. Did Odonkor and Kuranyi contribute anything?

2. germans played like they had huge hangover, sluggish, and their passes, from the midfield towards the last third of the field, were awful. didn’t help it that croatians marked them like crazy as well. ballack and klose didnt have a spectactular game last night.

3. as said before, playing by the left all the time is very predictable. there is a right side that can be exploited, (without odonkor, please) without schneider it might be hard and all, but maybe it’s worth a try?

4. schweinsteiger was a great sub. really, he was. he made an impact (unlike odonkor and kuranyi), creating a few chances as well as helping the offense to pressurise the croatians more. he really made an impact however, when he whacked jerko lerko and earned himself a red card. i love the guy, but i was mad at him for doing that–he is a great player as he is always out for offense, and he’s just gotten himself banned from two matches. let’s put it his way, if germany’s runner up in the group, and portugal the winner of group a, then we are facing portugal for quarter finals.

who scored for portugal when the germans faced them in world cup third placing match? schweinsteiger. twice. and assisted an own goal. while maybe he wouldn’t score this time around, but having this portugese-slayer would certainly be a moral boost. but we’d never know, would we, now?

What Germany did right:

1. i thought phillip lahm had a good game. the little guy really did try his best to subdue the agressive croatian offense and counter attack, as well as doing his part for the german offense by diving in deep to feed the ball to the forwards.

2. schweinsteiger was good as well. until the red card thing. but i think we learnt something from this: the WC06 formation is sacred. is good. poldi, klose in front, schweini (well, we cant use him anymore now, can we?), ballack, frings at their old WC06 positions as well as lahm at left back. poldi did score after he’s changed back to CF.

3. podolski. he and everyone else up front kept trying again and again and again, and his ball finally found the net. unfortunately for him, it wasnt enough.

at least austria and poland drew; this meant that germany’s still unchallenged as the second team in the group. just a draw (a win, please) against austria would do. but austria is a tough side now, isn’t it, since it’s now inspired by a free lifetime supply of beer for each player that scores?

The above is a little bit summarized–I wrote more on my blog at http://greenstreak-ed.livejournal.com/91254.html

Posted from Singapore

By Zoran | June 13th, 2008 at 9:26 am

@Intan

I’m not sure if we even saw the same match?
Croatia had more created chances, more of the ball and in every single aspect was a superior team. Croatian players showed more talent, desire and skill. To undermine yesterdays victory by saying they substituted talent with tactics (while all three, Modric, Kranjcar and Rakitic totally outplayed Ballack) and that second goal was a gift-of-a-kind (when Croatia had at least three other dead-on chances) is just silly to say the least.

Posted from Bosnia And Herzegovina

By diana | June 13th, 2008 at 9:40 am

‘7. Jogi Löw had no umbrella, it wasn’t raining and it wasn’t Wembley. But when he brought on Odonkor to take Fritz’ role on the right midfield side and when he then replaced Fritz with Kuranyi and allowed Odonkor to act as a right-back, you knew that even the coach had his off-day.’
Even all the more Steve McClaren was in the stadium as well for the BBC.

Regarding Mario Gomez, being a Stuttgart fan, he disappointed me.

Whatever the outcome in Vienna against Austria, I am already mentally prepared. Nothing surprises me in football anymore.

Posted from Singapore

By Intan | June 13th, 2008 at 9:46 am

Croatia’s more chances were because they were able to keep the ball away from the Germans by pressuring them, which is by playing an uncomfortable style of football for the Germans. Which is really tactics, although I agree that Croatian talents to play a part (it may be a bit crude for me to say this, but player by player, the Germans are expected to have more talents than the Croatians…). As for the Croatians having more of the ball, the stats show that the Germans still managed most of the possession at 57% compared to Croatia’s 43%.
I think we did watch the same match, but people interpret matches differently, no?

Posted from Singapore

By kenan | June 13th, 2008 at 9:54 am

I’m a supporter of Germany since 1982, and I’ve seen the ups and downs of Germany. This team is so much better than many other teams that passed before. Everyone talks about the positioning of players, and how should be on the bench and who should not, etc…. However, I like to talk about things that no one pays attention for:

Free Kicks: Who’s our expert? Ballack? How many has he scored from a free kick? Long gone the days when we had Mathaus, Brehme, Hussler, Moller. If you have a lethal free kick expert, you can almost win always. Offense would only need to get close to the penalty area and force a foul. Remember how many goals Brehme scored from free kicks, against France first goal in 86, Italy in 88, England in 90, and Husller scored in the 91st min against Russia in 92.

Crosses/Corners: My God even that we are not doing right. Rememeber how many goals we scored like that in 98 when Husler combined with Klinsmann. We have tall players, but we don’t have someone to deliver. Jensen doesn’t cross, he shoots and that makes it difficult to head the ball into goal, better he keeps it low.

Shots: WHY WE ARE NOT SHOOTING FROM OUTSIDE???? enough of those silly 1-2 in front of goal. Use a combination of both, let the defence not know where it will come from. Be unperdictable.

Formation: 4-4-2 isn’t working. Call me crazy, but here’s what I would do. First replace Lehman, Germany has half a dozen better keepers. Formation to be 5-3-2. The back wings contribute a lot to the forward, so there is will be no harm leaving 3 at the back. Most of the goals and missed chances came from the center. A sweeper with authority would solve that. That person is Frings, YES Frings. Didn’t we move Lothar from the center to the sweeper position before. He will deliver from the back, cuz none of the center defence has the confidence to do this, they simply pass to Frings or Ballack. Stick to Lahm on the left, give the right to Fritz. In front of defense, play Hitzilberger, we could make use of his powerful long range shots. Then in center forward Poldi to the left, Ballack to the right forming with Hitzilberger a trinagle in the middle. In front, Klose and someone else (for now, not Gomez) if left for me I would start with Neville, and substitute him with Kuranyi or vice-versa.

On the bench we’ll still have schweinsteiger for Poldi, Borowski for Ballack, Gomez, odonkor, and one player that I think should do nothing but practice free kicks and corners, and that is Trochowski.

By Nick | June 13th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

Kenan I have been following Germany since 1998, and I know the post-war German team history well. The current team may play the most attacking brand of football since 1982, but that is because we play aflexible 4-4-2 since Voeller and improved under Klinsi. Germany has thus abandoned the traditional sweeper 5-3-2 system. We can;t revert back to 5-3-2 because we do not have wonder sweepers like Beckenbauer or Sammer anymore. In fact over-reliance on 5-3-2 is why Germany has been “bad” since 1998. Brazil uses it, but let’s be realistic we are not Brazil by any stretch of the imagination. Our current model is inspired by England who humbled us in Munich but much more on France who have been on top of the World since 1998.

Our crosses are not bad (usually Lahm), but we no longer have a pacy killer instinct in front of goal (Klinsi). If we tried shooting from distance we might squander a buildup as we don’t have killer distance kick takers anymore (Haessler, Brehme)

I see what you are saying Croatia did not let us play our passing game. So we reverted to what England does best lobbing it forward. Since our defenders our now are no longer Sammer, Kohler, Eilts, Reuter, Tarnat, we have to change our game plan to suit the opponent sometimes. We have not done that. We can beat up on teams who do not close us down Poland, England, Portugal, Argentina, even an old Italy, but for those teams who adapt to our formation, Croatia, Czech Republic, basically every other East European team and Ireland/Wales we play poorly against.

When you add to the fact that the players were missing cohesion and heart, the ONLY consistent thing Germany has done throughout these decades, we crumbled. Same thing happened in Lyon a decade ago. (Though Woerns got red-carded at a crucial juncture, and Vogts decided to add on more strikers without supplying mid-fielders, we became complacent, frustrated, and well we acted a lot like Spain or England.)

I guess I am arguing above all else that the 1990 World Cup winning team and the 1996 European Championship team had much better individual players (Haessler, Moeller, Klinsmann, Bierhoff, Eilts, Littbarski, Voeller) than we do today. Nonetheless 4-4-2 (as France has shown) is the way forward, Germany needs to continue to invest in youth and we as fans need to keep supporting Germany, on the field especially.

I have always wondered what it would have been like to be there in 1954 in Berne? We are in Switzerland today again, perhaps we cand o somethign special again.

Italy is on it’s way out we are on the way to the final.

By curt adalbert | June 13th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

Lehman your time has come, Lehman you’ve had your fun it’s time to run, Lehman Lehman it’s some else’s time in the sun.

Posted from Netherlands

By Jan | June 13th, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Well, the individual quality is there, some players are still young, some aren’t in top form but I wouldn’t rate the 1996 team higher in that respect tbh. Löw took a gamble on players like Lehmann or Metzelder and will have to take responsibility for that if it fails. On the other hand you couldn’t have anticipated Gomez flopping like he did and Jansen being such a liability. There’s a lot of room for improvement.

By Nick | June 13th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

Well it looks like 1974 all over again doesn’t it Jan?

I hope Germany can live up to it’s end

By Burair | June 14th, 2008 at 10:49 pm

I can’t say how sad I was after by the end of the match, not because of the result.. but more because of how we played! This is not our team that I know of.
Anyways, I must disagree with Jan here: Lehmann was a super flop, and played like a teenager who is playing in a local team, yet in an important match (talking about how inconfident he seems to me).
Löw showed that he is not a top class couch. Am talking about putting Odonkor, who can do nothing but run, and creating a “dead” right side.. in addition to the fact that he couldn’t think of a solution for his team!
I think Germany should start with the same squad Klinsman used in in world cup 2006, but having Schneider’s place taken by Tim Borowski.. and on the left side Hitzlsperger.

Posted from New Zealand

By bunchapooha | June 15th, 2008 at 1:32 am

Shut up Nick, shut up.. If Germany wins 3-1 in the finals I’m holding you responsible.

Posted from Netherlands

By WIIBOY101 | June 21st, 2008 at 4:01 pm

who gives a flyin fuck argentina are no 1 and the gods sjhould give them there reward and basile fukibng take a look at lazzetti and that france based argy striker the poor mans batistuta forgot his name there both out and out scorers along side messi and with good wide suppoert thell score loads ARGENTINA NEED A EURO STYLE CENTRE FORWARD ALONG WITH THE TEXEZ THE MESSIS THE ROMANS THE LUCHOS

CONACHUNI HIS NAME SPELT DESPERATELY LOL HE IS SUCH A GOAL SCORER GET HIM UPFRONT WITH MESSI AND TEVEX PLAYING BEHIND HIM THEN HAVE A LINE OF 4 FOLLOWED BY 3 UNBEATABLE WELL AFTER SOME PRACTICE

Posted from United Kingdom