Video: 7 Goals, 6 Points: Germany Opens Euro 2012 Qualifying With a Bang

September 8th, 2010 | by: Luke |

The Germany WCB has been a little sleepy of late. I’m here to help change that. My name is Luke, and if you’re a newcomer to these pages, I will now shamelessly plug the fact that I also write the Bayern Offside blog. You should visit sometime. It’s not like the starting 11 is all that different from the national team these days..

Let’s start with the basics: If you were in North America over the last 5 days, catching Germany’s match action wasn’t an easy thing. Between the elimination of Saturday matches in Euro qualifying and the fact that there was no broadcast television coverage of the matches against Belgium and Azerbaijan, you may still be catching up on the action. So let’s start with some video highlights from those matches. Analysis and commentary to come.

September 3, 2010: Brussels
Belgium 0:1 Germany
1-0 Klose 51′

September 7, 2010: Cologne
Germany 6:1 Azerbaijan
1-0 Westermann 28′
2-0 Podolski 45′
3-0 Klose 45′
4-0 Sadygov og 53′
4-1 Dzhavadov 57′
5-1 Badstuber 86′
6-1 Klose 90′

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Socketranger

I sure did miss this blog over the last couple of months..
Bryce_O

Awesome to see that you are also writing for the German National Team Luke. Your reporting, writing and wit all make for an enjoyable read.
Clarissa

YAY, go Luke! What about guys like Nick and Jan, are they still writing for this page?
ED

Looks like the Mannschaft is going to have a couple of very important games with Turkey to decide who will win this group, unless Austria can come up and play spoiler which I doubt.
ED

And somewhere along the way Loew needs to find some one at LB that can play there for a long stretch of games at a high level.
http://bayern.theoffside.com Luke

Like Jogi, we're still figuring out the lineup, but it will be a team effort, likely with both old and new names contributing.
http://bayern.theoffside.com Luke

Looks that way at the moment, but timing is everything. They've got to take care of business on those long southeasterly trips. A couple lucky bounces and Belgium would have been much more in the picture after two matches as well.
http://bayern.theoffside.com Luke

Thanks Bryce. I hope we'll have a real well-rounded team effort here as we go forward.
Clarissa

Yeah, LB is a problem, if only we could somehow clone Lahm!

Kudos to Badstuber, he had a bad game on the left side against Serbia at the WC, but played quite well in the last two games. Especially the way he kept Lukaku quiet during the Belgium game was quite impressive imho…
Thomaes

Nice to see Luke on here as well. I like Nick and Jan as writers and bringing on Luke just makes it even better.
http://hamburg.theoffside.com Mark

Hey Luke, somehow my earlier comment disappeared. I hope I'm not spam!
Thomaes

Luckily for me I was in Copenhagen during the Belgium match and got to watch it on Eurosport just after the U-21 match against Czech. Then I come back to the states and, as Luke said, no broadcast via tele. However ESPN Deportes did show the replay this morning. So I had to watch it again after I watched it yesterday on the comp. Oh well. Im used to this stuff since the best league (Bundesliga) doesnt get as much attention as the others.
Phil Shafer

Cant wait to hopefully see Boateng play against Blackburn this saturday.
Nick_GWCB

Luke excellent to see you as the new blogger. Good luck and maybe a few of us will be back for the EM.

As for the N11 I have not seen us play so consistently since well maybe 1996. Not had the feeling we were favorites going into any game (except countries smaller than stadium capacity) since 1998.

I saw the U21 play NI and their style looks a lot like the senior team so lots to be optimistic about. Still a little concerned about the central defense, especially now Hummels is in the wilderness thanks to Adrion. We have two admittedly goal scoring dumplings as IV at any given time.
http://bayern.theoffside.com Luke

Thanks Nick–and as you know, you're welcome any time. I'm hoping it'll be a team effort here.

I will have to get up to speed on the U21 as I haven't watched anything more than highlights in some time now.
Armando

Klose and Podolski truly are perpetual GODS for the national team. Wow. Just Wow.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_P6E3UUOVGF5Z3TLIWOB7NOQC4I leovigilda

If you guys live in the U.S. try channel 860 espnd. They show the the Euro Cup Qualifiers, theyre in spanish but hey better than nothing