Germany V. France

sportsczy wrote:... Madrid fans know that Ozil is either brilliant or a ghost. He was a ghost for 6 months before December.

Sorry, but this is just not true. He's never been ghosting even when he's not in his top brilliant form. The last time he's been ghosting was the 5-0 Barca match years ago. I think he's just building up his form gradually which is normal for any player. He ended 2012 season with high note. At Euro, though it was probably a tournament to forget for him, he still got 2 motm award and Germany better player in the lost to Italy. Later he started the new season rather weak by his standard and rotation with Mordric not helping too, but we're already seeing his better form since the 2-2 Barca match in October and he's on the right track since then. He already had some great matches long before December. In overall he's great most of the time with Madrid just like with Germany, though in a different way.

Mr Nick09 wrote:

sportsczy wrote:And Z... Madrid fans know that Ozil is either brilliant or a ghost. He was a ghost for 6 months before December. I believe it's because Mou moved him forward that he suddenly regained top form... but you can't really build around someone unless they show a consistent 12 months of top form. Germany has too much talent to take that kind of risk.

Personally, i'd build around a system and then adjust if a player truly proves that they deserve to be built around.

thing is, Ozil doesnt have such problems with germany. He is great for them most of the time bar the euros. mou doesnt have a clue how to best use Ozil in a collective, Low does. Germany plays to Ozil strength, on the run, every one exchange positions, create space for others etc...

I was about to post this. Fully agree.
I have never seen Özil ghost with Germany, it only happens with Madrid, and for some reason, in those games a lot of Real players disappear. Ever conclude that maybe this Real team doesn't have the stuff to pull of consistent dominance?
I know it's tempting to blame individual players, but something's off when the same player is always killing it with his NT.

Or to put it more less drastically: Sometimes, even good teams lose. And if they do, their good players can look pretty bad, or else they would not have lost.

Low's tactics are destined for failure in tournaments because the holes in defense are too big. His big game tactics are not good. Fun to watch though...

As far as scoring... Gomez is terrible now and doesn't fit the style. Klose is injured and finished. Go the Spain route if you have a ton of creative mids and no CFs imo. Anyone can finish one-on-one's with the keeper. Even Khedira did it lol.

sportsczy wrote:Low's tactics are destined for failure in tournaments because the holes in defense are too big. His big game tactics are not good. Fun to watch though...

This is only half-true. Germanys tactics have worked even against big teams like Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, England, etc. (yeah I know, Argentina and England were pretty defunct then) - we only lose when Löw starts to screw with those foundations.

Sacrifices width and speed in attack against Italy? We get hammered.
Replaces the attack-minded Müller (who was suspended) against Spain with the defense-minded and slow Trochowski? We get narrowly beaten.

When have we lost an important game even though we were attacking? Once. Against Serbia. With 10 men.

Edit: since we started emplying 4-2-3-1, so basically, since 2009.

As far as scoring... Gomez is terrible now and doesn't fit the style. Klose is injured and finished. Go the Spain route if you have a ton of creative mids and no CFs imo. Anyone can finish one-on-one's with the keeper. Even Khedira did it lol.

Gomez will come back form-wise, but I agree that he doesn't fit us. We should play a false 9, any of Reus, Götze, Müller, Podolski and Schürrle could do very well on that position, and in like 2 or 3 years we'll have a new crop of strikers, some of them quite promising at the youth level.

To be able to both field Kroos and Özil, Jogi could switch to this 4-3-3:

--------------------- Neuer
- Lahm ------- Hummels - Höwedes --- Schmelzer
------------ Khedira - Schweinsteiger
---------------------- Kroos
------ Müller ---------- Özil ---------- Reus


The front 3 can interchange all the time and each of them gets their turns as the center goalscoring outlet. Kroos gets to play deeper than he would in a 4-2-3-1, which suits his playmaking abilities, but is still covered by 2 deeper lying midfielders most of the time, so that his rather mediocre defensive abilities aren't exploited as much.

However, the drawback with this formation - as with any formation these days - is that one player who's too good for the bench will still end up there. In this example it would be Götze, however, if Götze keeps on playing and developing like he has, there'll just be no way around him. Then again, once Götze displaces Reus or Müller, the same discussion will simply revolve around one of those two, given their current form and room for development.
Essentially, there's just no space to fit in all of Özil, Götze, Reus, Müller and Kroos and one of those 5 won't be able to start in all non-rotation scenarios. As of now, I'd personally see Kroos in that unfortunate bench role, because despite being very strong, he's still the 'weakest' link among this group of class players and he's the one that fits the current system the least. Infact, he isn't too weak, but the others are too strong.

The only way to force them all into the same line up is by having Kroos play instead of Khedira or Schweinsteiger, which can easily result in a defensive instability (which is often a problem for Jogi's NT anyway, due to their utterly attack-minded play). It worked a few times in friendlies when Jogi used a 4-1-4-1 formation (e.g. against Brazil in 2011), but it can easily be exploited and backfire. At Bayern, Kroos is also playing in front of Schweinsteiger and Martinez and not as part of the double pivot anymore. Maybe he'll develope into a better defensive player, but, at this stage, I somewhat doubt it.

Doubt it,it is very tough to play a false 9 role successfully and dont think Ozil has the ability to play there yet.

I'd prefer a player with better finishing there as well, hence my preferrance for Götze, Reus, and Müller for that position.
Preferrably Reus. Probably best finisher of the lot.

Dr. Percival Faust wrote:To be able to both field Kroos and Özil, Jogi could switch to this 4-3-3:

--------------------- Neuer
- Lahm ------- Hummels - Höwedes --- Schmelzer
------------ Khedira - Schweinsteiger
---------------------- Kroos
------ Müller ---------- Özil ---------- Reus


The front 3 can interchange all the time and each of them gets their turns as the center goalscoring outlet. Kroos gets to play deeper than he would in a 4-2-3-1, which suits his playmaking abilities, but is still covered by 2 deeper lying midfielders most of the time, so that his rather mediocre defensive abilities aren't exploited as much.

However, the drawback with this formation - as with any formation these days - is that one player who's too good for the bench will still end up there. In this example it would be Götze, however, if Götze keeps on playing and developing like he has, there'll just be no way around him. Then again, once Götze displaces Reus or Müller, the same discussion will simply revolve around one of those two, given their current form and room for development.
Essentially, there's just no space to fit in all of Özil, Götze, Reus, Müller and Kroos and one of those 5 won't be able to start in all non-rotation scenarios. As of now, I'd personally see Kroos in that unfortunate bench role, because despite being very strong, he's still the 'weakest' link among this group of class players and he's the one that fits the current system the least. Infact, he isn't too weak, but the others are too strong.

The only way to force them all into the same line up is by having Kroos play instead of Khedira or Schweinsteiger, which can easily result in a defensive instability (which is often a problem for Jogi's NT anyway, due to their utterly attack-minded play). It worked a few times in friendlies when Jogi used a 4-1-4-1 formation (e.g. against Brazil in 2011), but it can easily be exploited and backfire. At Bayern, Kroos is also playing in front of Schweinsteiger and Martinez and not as part of the double pivot anymore. Maybe he'll develope into a better defensive player, but, at this stage, I somewhat doubt it.

The formation you're talking about is actualy 4-3-1-2. In that formation, Lahm and Schmelzer would get more cover to make runs forward. The pivot isn't the real problem there. One needs to box to box CMs to make runs, Schweini and Khedira fit the bill. Gündogan is perfect as the anchorman or someone who breaks and starts attack as deepest midfielder. I see no room for Kroos there. He is too static in B2B role and not defensive enough for the anchor role.

Adit wrote:Doubt it,it is very tough to play a false 9 role successfully and dont think Ozil has the ability to play there yet.

Özil doesn't need to play false 9. He is a proper trequartista already.

The formation Dr.Precival showed wasnt a 4-3-1-2 though, it was a 433 with wide wingers with Ozil as a false 9.

ozil false 9? yeah no that cant work.

Gotze can be a false 9 though. That's where i'd put him.

So can Reus, that's where I'd put him.

false this, false that, play a real CF in his position, or at the very least Muller.

Muller doesn't make any central runs... he always comes in from the side. i've seen Gotze play centrally since Lewandowski can't hit the side of a barn pretty often. And Reus is really a true winger imo. He's at his best there and brings the most.

The 2 guys that i've seen make really good striker runs through the middle (and more than once or twice lol) are Gotze and Ozil. That's i put them as a false 9.

There are no good CFs in Germany right now unfortunately.

Why is everyone saying Özil can't play as a false 9? He did it in this game when Gomez went off and played very well. Not saying it would work in big matches but it's not impossible.

rwo power wrote:

CBarca wrote:How did Lloris do?

Very well. He made quite some brilliant saves to deny some additional German goals. Actually, both keepers were top notch yesterday.

Thanks rwo

Good to hear.

Zealous wrote:


You're going to bench this guy? The team should be built around him if anything.

Wow. great performance.

Mamad wrote:

Zealous wrote:


You're going to bench this guy? The team should be built around him if anything.

Wow. great performance.

Artsy-fartsy version of his best-of:
http://tv.dfb.de/index.php?view=5475

While we are on the subject of CMs.... Gundogan is the best CM Germany have IMO.

If we are talking about modern controlling CMs who can do everything.

To me Kroos isn't as good defensively and Schweignsteiger doesn't control the tempo or pass as well as him.

Long term i would go....


Goetze and Reus could easily swap positions as i feel either could do either role expertly.

Ozil and Muller just have to be there simple as and to me Gundogan fits the CM role better than Kroos or Schweignsteiger and Ozil fits the AM role better than Kroos.

Seems unfair to leave such a great player like Kroos out but its about fitting roles and systems and i don't feel Kroos fits either CM or AM better than other options around.

So much talent in these areas it is ridiculous.

sign me up mole, gundogan is extremely good. dunno why people think Sahin will bench him because he is quite frankly superior nowadays, and certainly better rounded than sahin (i mean in defense). and he can do them defense splitting passes that also split my underwear. not too shaby technically, moves around well. Thiago would be proud.

Good thing is that Gundogan should be available now that Sahin is back at DOrtmund... come on Madrid!

I fully agree with Moles front-four, I'm not too sure about anything behind that, though.

As far as France NT, I'm hoping in the next 12 months we would have:

Lloris
Sagna-Varane-Sakho-Evra
Pogba-Cabaye-Matuidi
Niang-Benzema-Ribery

Only guy that is a question mark here is Niang.

sportsczy wrote:As far as France NT, I'm hoping in the next 12 months we would have:

Lloris
Sagna-Varane-Sakho-Evra
Pogba-Cabaye-Matuidi
Niang-Benzema-Ribery

Only guy that is a question mark here is Niang.

Can you spare us your ridiculous team composition? You should concentrate about your country and not focus on another country so much.