U21 Euro 2009 Wrap-Up

Well, it’s not time to wrap up the whole tournament yet, but at least everything that happened since the opening match against Spain. In short: Germany made it to the final (against England) after beating Finland (2-0), drawing England (1-1) and beating Italy (1-0). Following the good performance against Spain it wasn’t a completely unthinkable outcome. Following the actual performances that followed it’s quite a surprise.

Offense wins games and defense wins championships goes the old footie adage. So far this U21 team is putting the assumption to the test. The team has no striker, at least not one of the quality Horst Hrubesch would dare to put into the starting Xi. The creative/attacking midfielders Hrubesch plays up top really mostly play like they are midfielders; Mesut Özil like he is a brilliant midfielder in the making and Ashkan Dejagah like he won’t make the step up to the senior side. But they aren’t strikers and they mostly try to work their way through the oppositions defense all on their own with nobody there to receive a potential pass. It’s telling that Özil’s main contribution were two assists in the game against Finland and not a single goal (plus some neat but ineffective footwork in most games). So, oddly enough all but one goal have been scored by defenders (Beck, Höwedes) or a defensive midfielder (Castro). Those same defenders and Manuel Neuer have also been responsible that Germany only conceded a single goal (from a corner) so far. Benedikt Höwedes and Jerome Boateng could probably be installed as the new centre back pairing for the senior side straight away and solve a lot of the problems Löw’s team has been having recently (where recently equals a time span of one and a half years admittedly). Manuel Neuer has used the tournament to make a strong case for the #1 spot in the senior side – or at least to be picked for the squad. Against Italy Neuer had “one of those games” where he single handedly kept Germany in the game with spectacular saves. Probably not quite up to his game against Porto in the Champions League but it was pretty good nonetheless. Andreas Beck has proven to be a solid full back and since there currently aren’t any decidedly better players in sight in time for 2010 he also increased his chances for the senior side. So far so encouraging.

The midfield has been a real let down though. Sami Khedira (out injured against Italy – so no blame there) hasn’t managed to really stabilize and run the midfield and all in all it’s way too disconnected and struggling to come up with a proper passing game. Way too much of the play is highly speculative with unnecessary back heel pass attempts and individual trickery instead of trying to build a game based and clean passes. Marko Marin also had a tournament to forget so far. I’m willing to cut the team some slack here though, or rather Horst Hrubesch. He only had a very small amount of time to train and work with the players. Usually coaches below the U21 take care of a team for two years before moving on to a new age group, while the U21 position is permament. And e.g. Hrubesch’s U19 (now U20) has played with a proper build-up from the midfield. I think this team could do much better given a bit more time. In my preview post I already mentioned why Hrubesch decided against promoting a proper striker or additional midfield reinforcements from the U20 side. But the situation with two midfielders up front is simply an unsatisfactory solution and I feel Özil could have had an even better tournament, if he played on his natural position in midfield.

All in all, I hope that the team can somehow improve it’s game in time for the final, otherwise they’ll predictably made to chase the game again against England. That being said, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll lose the game, as this team has proven.

Should the team win this tournament it would be the first ever U21 Euro title for Germany and the first every title hattrick (U17, U19 and U21) by any country in Europe. Maybe some statisticians in Hrubesch’s squad can take that as extra motivation.

The final will be played on Monday 20.45h CET.