Ukraine And Our Favorite Enemy

November 10th, 2011 | by: Jan | Comments Off

Germany play the Ukraine in the Olympic Stadium in Kiev tomorrow. Kiev will host the final of Euro 2012. So this should be a good opportunity for the players to get a feel for the stadium they want to win the trophy in next year. On Tuesday, Germany will host the Netherlands in Hamburg. Except for a match against Spain, you couldn’t ask for a better benchmark for this young team.

The squad for both games:

Goal: Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich), Tim Wiese (Werder Bremen), Ron-Robert Zieler (Hannover 96)
Defense: Dennis Aogo (Hamburger SV), Holger Badstuber (Bayern Munich), Jerome Boateng (Bayern Munich), Benedikt Höwedes (Schalke 04), Mats Hummels (Borussia Dortmund), Per Mertesacker (Arsenal), Marcel Schmelzer (Borussia Dortmund), Christian Träsch (Wolfsburg)
Midfield: Lars Bender (Bayer Leverkusen), Mario Götze (Borussia Dortmund), Sami Khedira (Real Madrid), Toni Kroos (Bayern Munich), Thomas Müller (Bayern Munich), Lukas Podolski (Cologne), Mesut Özil (Real Madrid), Marco Reus (Mönchengladbach), Simon Rolfes (Bayer Leverkusen), Andre Schürrle (Bayer Leverkusen)
Offense: Cacau (VfB Stuttgart), Mario Gomez (Bayern Munich), Miroslav Klose (Lazio)

Miroslav Klose and, again, Marco Reus are out injured and stayed in Germany. Both might be fit in time for Tuesday. Lukas Podolski is a candidate to wear the captain’s armband against Ukraine. Ron-Robert Zieler will get his national team debut. Mats Hummels will defend alongside Holger Badstuber. Some other central defender will certainly play as right back.

The most interesting news though, is that Löw will experiment and play both Götze and Özil in the starting eleven. That should be very interesting.