Post#44 » by Sleepy » Wed Jul 2, 2008 8:50 pm
My thoughts on the german team:
We sucked, but nonetheless got to the finals. Can't argue with that. There are problems, but I think they could be solved rather easily.
i) Goalie: We'll be fine if Löw chooses one of the younger guys over Hildebrand and Enke. I like Adler best, with Rensing second and Neuer as a high risk gamble. He could be special, but is way too inconsistent to start right now. Unfortunatly for him, if a new german goalie is choosen, he usually remains untouchable till he retires. If Adler becomes the new number one, it'll be difficult for Neuer to become more than his backup. Well, however this turns out, this position doesn't faze me.
ii) Defense: Was one of the two big weaknesses of this tournament. Unfortunatly, there's nothing behind Merte&Metze to put pressure on them. Mertesacker should be fine after the talks about his new contract are over. I like him alot, he'll stabilize Metzelder, but the central defense definitly isn't the crownjewel of this team.
On the flanks, Lahm is too valuable to be wasted there. With his growing experience, I'd put him to the central defensive midfield. Gonzalo Castro, Marcel Jansen, Clemes Fritz, Heiko Westermann, Christian Pander and some youth players like Daniel Schwaab are good enough to man the flanks.
iii) Midfield: Here it get's interesting. The second big problem was that we couldn't create anything out of the midfield. If the opponent fields a good 6 and takes Ballack out of the game, we're done. Fortunatly, we got two young potential superstars to fill this void. Toni Kross and Marko Marin will be part of the national squad in the near future and both have the potential to become creative offensive midfielders.
Ballack and (big change) Lahm take over the defensive midfield. Lahm is a worldclass player, he needs a bigger challenge than the left side. He's smart, fast and would be a prototypical 6 if he was a few inch bigger. Putting a Kleiderschrank like Ballack next to him solves this and would provide us with the defensive stability and game-opening passes we lacked this year.
On the sides, Podolski and Schweinsteiger should be obvious. I just hope Klinsmann plays them at Bayern.
iii) Offense: Easy... It's Klose till Gomez proves he's ready for the international play. He has the potential, just needs some experience to become cleverer. Oh, and make sure Kevin Kuranyi never plays for Germany again, yeah?
Conclusion:
Your 2010 world champion:
------------------Adler------------------ Rensing/Neuer
Castro---Merte-Metze---Jansen Fritz/Hummels?/Friedr./Westermann
-----------Ballack---Lahm----------- Rolfes/Hitzl./Frings
------------------Kroos--------------- Marin/Khedira?/Özil?
-Schweini---------------------Poldi- Schneider/Dejagah?
-----------------Klose----------------- Gomez/Helmes
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