Five Conclusions From Germany 3-1 Belgium

October 12th, 2011 | by: Jan | Comments Off

Germany was lucky to survive Belgium’s early pressure. Something which was also true for the Turkey game. Germany’s back-line didn’t look particularly composed, organized and fit to soak up the pressure. Germany benefitted from the lack of precision and punch of the Turkish and Belgian attacks, which made them easier to defend. Germany look vulnerable and teams with more individual class could easily expose those frailties. The friendly against the Netherlands should give us a much better idea, how stable our back line really is.

Germany’s midfield looked “interesting”. Jogi Löw used the opportunity to experiment, by giving his players much more freedom to change and switch positions around. Something players like Özil, Schürrle and Müller are quite comfortable with. But instead of adding more creativity and unpredictability to Germany’s attacks, it often left things in disarray when Germany lost the ball or played a bad pass. It worked quite well during some periods of the match. It remains to be seen, whether Löw will try to make this work until the Euros, or just toyed with an idea.

Germany’s counter attacks and individual brilliance save the day. Continuously and consistently. And it’s reassuring to know, that you can always fall back on those two, while we try to figure out the right personnel for the back-line and the way we want our midfield to play.

Mario Gomez keeps stumbling and tumbling and scoring. Maybe what sets Mario Gomez apart from other strikers is, that he isn’t loosing a lot of balls to a defender, but to his own feet. His clumsiness lets me repeatedly hope for a more “gifted” striker to come through the youth ranks to replace Klose. But Mario Gomez’ current goalscoring record speaks for itself. Jürgen Klinsmann had the first touch of a pinball machine bumper and won it all with Germany as well.

It’s all tied in the defense. Höwedes or Boateng as right-back. Hummels or Mertesacker to play alongside Badstuber. None of them particularly stood out in a positive or negative sense. So, it’s really just about Löw making two picks and then let a fixed back line settle down until next year. That is also the amount of time I’m willing to give Philipp Lahm to prove, why exactly he is so much better on the left.