BShaftoe
Posts: 77
Joined: 6/22/2005 From: Oviedo, North of Spain Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Offworlder quote:
ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus quote:
ORIGINAL: Offworlder Germany's midfield is rather eclectic and flexible. Except for Osil, all are capable of defending or at least doubling an adversary, which is a huge advantage. Heck even Klose sometimes can be found chasing adversaries for the ball Btw if Paul the octopus screws up, send him to Malta on 'vacation'. Here he'll meet a lot of his friends... Well, even a pure striker as Samuel Eto'o could defend, true... Against Barcelona (Champions League semi-final) and Bayern München (final) Mourinho made him play as a right winger But this does not mean he will be good at that "new" job. You will hardly find very good creative midfielders who are very good destructive midfielders. It's either one thing or the other. And above all, you cannot do both things at the same time. So you need a creative and destructive guy. Different guys, different (and important) tasks. True enough. But never underestimate the fact that even a creative midfielder hovering at your back or doubling you, exerts that certain pressure on anyone who's with the ball. The truth is that more often than not its Schweinsteiger who recovers (and proposes) balls in the midfield. As I said, the German midfielders do seem to double back many times leaving little space for their adversaries and basically clogging the midfield. Btw Fletcher I think that on paper the Spanish team can be superior - more experience, an ability to find a way through somehow and a coach who is ready to make tough calls when needed. I mean the guy doesn't look at the name but at the requirements of that particular game, even though he espouses a certain football mentality. It takes guts to go up in front of the press after the loss to Switzerland, say it was mostly bad luck (which it kind of was) and that he's not going to change because of that. Ok. Then I think we will win. We have a rugged and strong midfield (that is extremely good creating AND destroying, and is probably the best midfield of the championship, including Germany) that is used to play international championships, a striker in a good luck streak (Villa), and we have demonstrated that we can begin losing and actually turn around the result (losing against Switzerland, but managing to win two matches afterwards and get out of the league phase as first of our group). Also, the only reason we haven't shined until now is because we have played against teams that have gone on the defensive, on a extreme way. Every time we have scored a goal and those teams have gone on the offensive, letting their defenses "down", our game has improved a lot, and it always seemed we were on the brink to score more goals. So I think this match will be different: Germany is not going to be ultradefensive, so probably, we will see a very good match (a match I think we'll win). As someone has already said, I think that the first team to score will have a huge advantage and will most likely win the match, but I think, that given the advantage in experience of Spain players, recovering a goal would be slightly more likely for Spain than for Germany. That being said, if we lose against Germany (something of course possible), at least we will lose against a team that is actually playing football, and not just adding players behind the ball, and waiting for the first mistake of the team actually playing.
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