2041

Thanks mate, that clears it!

2042

You’re welcome! :)

2043

Klinsmann also backed up the “he needs to feel appreciated” suggestion.

2044

The Dutch should crush Uruguay - it’s one of the most mismatched semi-finals I can remember. It’s at least on par with Italy-Bulgaria in 1994, but at least there Bulgaria had shown some form by beating the holders Germany in the quarters; Uruguay haven’t done much at all this tournament. The bookies don’t give them a hope either: their odds on Holland winning are almost the same as they had for Portugal beating North Korea.

Spain-Germany is sure to be much tighter, but based on recent performances (4-1 vs. England and 4-0 vs. Argentina) I’ll be surprised if Germany don’t make another final. I’ll be supporting Spain, though, as I want a all non-champion final :).

2045

I agree that Holland should beat them easily, and I hope they do. I just don’t see it as a foregone conclusion like most people seem to. Uruguay hasn’t done much to get here, had an easier path (what an understatement!), everything is Hollands favor. I may come around to conventional thinking after a day or so to think about it.

2046

Without De Jongh and Van Der Wiel, and with Mathijsen likely to be out, Holland are in serious danger of being crap in defence.

2047

Juan, here’s another totally unimportant piece of info you may find interesting.

Before each WCh tournament the following things happen. It’s always the same:

  • There’s a discussion about the attackers. They’re too young / too old / injured / not fit / out of form / didn’t score a goal in the last 6 months.
    Result: The attackers score one goal after the other, even if the creative department phones in its performance.

  • The German team loses a couple of preparation games in a disastrous way. Everybody and his dog is worried, the coach has lost connection to reality and Germany won’t survive the group stage.
    Result: The team starts winning just in time for the first group game, has problems in the 2nd game and wins the 3rd. Then they’ve found their rhythm. All the teams which excelled during preparation are beyond their peak. Ask Gary Lineker for more details. ;)

  • There’s a discussion about who is the right goalie for the tournament. Whatever the coach does is always wrong. Prime example: In 2006 we had Kahn & Lehmann. Lots of press outrage for more than a year. Both are retired now.
    Result: What everybody overlooked was that both were clearly world class. The decision didn’t matter. Same this year. 5 goalies on the same level, good albeit slightly below world class.
    Germany has an abundance of good goalkeepers. The current German number 3 (Butt; Bayern) would still be above average in this tournament. Especially England would kill to have such a player for both goal and penalties eg.

2048

Pretty cool. Got another question for you. I am worried about Muller being out, who do you see taking his place and can the replacement offer the same kind of movement and skills?

Anothero one: in a team full of youngsters (Otzil is what, 21?) Klose is an old man at 32 (not a dig at him, just saying he is a bit above the German team age). So who are the attackers if he and Podolski aren’t available?

Edit: also what you describe is pretty hilarious. I do remember the whole Khan or Lehmans controversy, and how it was apparently a big deal.

2049

Hopefully Cacau.

2050

I think Cacau is injured. The other attackers didn’t have the opportunity to shine yet.

2051

Tought he was injured or something?

I wish I knew more about German futbol. We get a lot of games in the telly here, lots of spanish La Liga, and some Premier, Calcio and even US league, but nothing from Germany.

2052

What I like about Germany is their approach to managers. In England we fret over past performance: the number of cups, win percentage, etc. is all added up and counted for and against managers. In Germany they rarely hire a big name manager. They almost all come from smaller teams or are promoted from within the national team set-up: Low was assistant to Klinsmann for the last World Cup.

And Germany always seems to have better managers than England…

2053

He is. That’s why it’s a very hope filled hopeful.

2054

I’m not sure. Today Trochowski came for Müller. Maybe somebody who knows more about the players can give a detailed answer. I’m not really deep into this.

I suppose Müller’s suspension is a problem. It’s hard to find an equal replacement. Maybe Löw decides to modify the system and shuffle his offense around a bit to accomodate to the new situation. He has a lot of flexible players on the bench. It should be possible to compensate the loss, as proven by Ballack’s example. Ballack was considered the team’s heart 2 months ago. Now his future is uncertain.

32 is the best age for an attacker. He could even have juice for one more tournament (EURO 2012).
Cacau would probably be first choice, but he’s injured. The out of form Gomez could replace Klose. I’d rather avoid that though.
Kiessling was the most successful attacker in the Bundesliga this year, but he still has to earn his status in the national team.
I guess it’s better if Klose keeps playing.

2055

I hope the USA make a better effort to get Klinsman this time around, I’m not a Bradley basher, but it would be great to see what Klinsman could do with the US side. I think the biggest difference might be in the players he would select.

2056

It’s not that easy. ;)

Löw was only officially Klinsmann’s assistant. It was an open secret that Löw was already behind a lot of daily work and the detailed strategy. You don’t hire a coach who was German and Austrian champion as assi for a newbie. It was a team effort, Klinsmann only was the guy who had to sell it.

Promoting the assistant to headcoach has a long tradition in Germany.

Germany tried a lot before Klinsmann, Löw & Bierhoff. We had our Maradona, even 2 times (Beckenbauer, Völler), resulting in places 2, 1, 2 in 3 tournaments, with one good and two mediocre teams. After the (undeservedly!) hated Vogts was gone the old guard was called. Ribbeck was also a former assi. The result was a debacle, although it’s not clear it was the coach’s fault. The player material was simply not available.
Calling Klinsmann was only the tip of the iceberg. Something unthinkable happened. The DFB, a conservative, giant sports organisation with millions of members, gave him almost a blank check to destroy all old structures relevant for youth development and the national team, and replace them with something state-of-the-art. They’ve invited the revolution, fully aware that it carried the risk of years without success for the national team. The opposite happened …

I wouldn’t really say Germany had the better coaches. Maybe England has other structural problems, for example the long Premier League season.

Win % is indeed a non-issue. What is expected is 1/4 final and good football at a big tournament or a better result and nobody cares about the quality. Losing against ARG would have been no problem for Löw. Going out against ENG would have been critical.

edit: Sorry for all the long posts.

2057

Difficult. Klinsmann doesn’t know the word “compromise”.

Maybe ENG should hire him, together with a local Löw. Then he can make the necessary changes and take all the controversy with him after 2 years. ;)

2058

Interesting. Always liked Vogts btw.

So we are talking about a group of players that has worked very closely with Löw for a long time now, plus a system designed to try and get new, young players to succeed in the national team. No wonder they doing good.

I really like this team, their defense worries me a bit since England made it look bad for a bit, and of course Serbia defeated Germany, plus Spain midfielders are considered to be the best on the world (in Spain, at least, an I guess every country where you get La Liga games).

See, I knew you were one to ask questions to :)

Edit: long posts are great at least for me, as I said, I wish I knew more about German futbol.

2059

Which is hilarious to me, except that I really mean the exact opposite of hilarious. The US Soccer Federation should hire him and give him carte blanche, a four year contract. If he fails, we (USA) start from scratch in 2014 and try something different. I bet at worst we would learn something from the experience and do better than we currently are.

In international soccer we are stuck in that awful “will make the WC Finals, probably get out of the Group Stage with a decent draw, but not a real threat” phase, and we can’t break free from it. We’ve been there since 1994. Time to move up.

Winning our Group this year gave us a path to the semifinals that was as easy as any team is likely to get, and I’m sure Ghana and Uruguay (duh) feel the same way. Uruguay made it, the US is sitting at home. Ghana is working on PK’s I guess.

2060

the most hilarious thing was this pressmeeting:

Maradona thought that Müller was only a ballboy… i believe he now knows who Müller is ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUKpW1YefRY