The Euro 2012 thread

[DirtyP2002]

Barozi said:

okr said:

JazzyJeez said:

okr said:
Too much Bayern, too few Dortmund today. Won a game, won't win the title if they don't change their pacing and tactics. Hummels played great.

Yeah I was really impressed with Mats Hummels, got a very good engine in him.

Unfortunately he was the only player in today's German team from Borussia Dortmund, one of Europe's best 2011/2012 league teams. The team which beat Bayern 5 times in the last two seasons, the team which won both national titles this season. Jogi Löw loves how Dortmund plays, but for some reason he doesn't trust most of the young Dortmund players like he trusted his then new, young players (e.g. Müller, Özil) two years ago in South Africa. He wants the Bayern players to play like Dortmund: extremely fast paced, always 2on1, constantly pressing, surprising combinations, but they just can't do it. They lost all 3 possible national and international titles this season and still they can't help but to play the currently typical, old-fashioned Bayern style: Too slow, always horizontally orientated prior to vertically, just without Robben & Ribery this time, their two overrated onemanshows, but with a Özil instead who's a fantastic player but seems not to be in best shape atm and a Lukas Podolski who's really not needed in this team anymore.

At least Khedira played very good today, best player besides Hummels, gives me some hope. Still I say: Bayern Germany won't win this title. If he doesn't win the title with this 7of11/Bayern+2of11/RealMadrid national team, Löw can at least claim he probably had the best bench of this tournament: Götze, Bender, Gündogan, Schmelzer (all Dortmund), Reus (Borussia Mönchengladbach, next season: Dortmund), Höwedes, Schürrle (both Schalke 04). All excellent, young players.

Wh0t Schürrle plays for Leverkusen.

Besides I wouldn't trust most of the Dortmund players either. There's simply not much reason for it. They play great for Dortmund, but mostly suck in the national team. This was Hummels best game by far, because usually he is the reason why Germany can't win with a clean sheet. Schmelzer plays equally bad
and Goetze had maybe two great games... out of 15.

And you know how those friendlies turn out when Löw experiments too much...


As for the game Germany was the unlucky one, not Portugal. Gomez scored a perfect goal, but the referee called a foul like 2 seconds before Gomez takes the shot. Ever heard of the advantage rule ?
Then the referee also denied us a clear red card. Fist into the face of Badstuber and no one can tell that this was an unintentional move. Not a very hard punch, but still easily enough for a red card.

Overall well deserved victory and at the same time still lots of room for improvements. Portugal only tried to score a goal after they were in behind starting in the ~80th minute. Before that they didn't have more chances than Germany.

Götze only played 118 minutes in the qualification for the tournament !!! He even scored once.
He played 554 minutes for Germany in friendly games (about 6 games if you want.) He scored twice. One against Brazil.

That is pretty impressive for a 19 year old midfielder (I know he just turned 20 last week).

Schmelzer is not on the level of Lahm, no doubt about it.

Hummels is bay far the best defender in Germany and I go one step further that you only have a handful of players in the world with his skills on that position.

But what Schweinsteiger played was just awful. He wants to lead a team? Well he has to increase his performance by a factor of 10 for that.
Müller was a pain to watch. He never came even close of his game in the 2010 world cup. Neither in this game nor in any game in the past 2 years. Reus or Götze should get their chance.