Congratulations to Spain. The best team of the tourney has won, and as depressed as I am, thatīs still a good thing.
I just want to say a few things about the german players:
1. Lahm is not bad defensively, quite the opposite. His only bad defensive game was against Turkey, and Podolski in front of him did not work enough in that game. As I already said, I follow his career since heīs 19, and can only remember a hand full of bad games by Lahm.
2. Mertesacker is a good centre back. The problem might be that Metzelder`s and Mertesacker`s names sound similar, so one might be inclined to put them together in their evaluation. Metzelder was the one who sucked. He made unnecessary turnovers and was always out of position defensively. Statistically, Mertesacker is one of the best defenders in europe. Heīs very smart, gives 100% and always tries to play fair, I canīt blame him.
3. We only had 4 shots on the spanish goal in the whole game. Thatīs the lowest number in a german game since 1998. We always tried to close the passing lanes and somehow forgot that you need at least one player who attacks the opposing player with the ball, which led to many easy conter opportunities for Spain. The spanish players are too good with the ball and play too direct for that tactic. In return, the spacing on offense was horrible, lazy passes and no smart plays whatsoever. No way you win any game with such a performance.
4. I want a new goalie. Bierhoff, the team manager, is best friends with Lehmann, so I think that played into the decision for Lehmann. We have more good goalies than field players in Germany, I donīt know why we needed a 38-year-old Lehmann.
Just an overall poor performance, our leaders didnīt step up, and when Lahm went out, we all knew it was over. Oh well, Ballack, Klose and Frings still have a chance at the WC 2010. Theyīll be 32/33 then, but I guess they`ll still play that tourney.
