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    Starting the title defence

    Had I not been travelling, I'd have done this on Saturday already. As it is, Germany's defeat to Mexico confirms a patters of defending champions starting off poorly.

    2014: Spain vs Netherlands 1-5 (eliminated in group stage)
    2010: Italy vs Paraguay 1-1 (eliminated in group stage)
    2006: Brazil vs Croatia 1-0 (Q/F -- not a bad result, so here's a valid exception to the rule)
    2002: France vs Senegal 0-1 (eliminated in group stage)
    1998: Brazil vs Scotland 2-1 (finalists; a win but not a great performance, decided by an own goal)
    1994: Germany vs Bolivia 1-0 (Q/F. A terrible performance)
    1990: Argentina vs Cameroon 0-1 (finalists; would be out in group stages under present system)
    1986: Italy vs Bulgaria 1-1 (2nd round)
    1982: Argentina vs Belgium 0-1 (2nd round)
    1978: West Germany vs Poland 0-0 (2nd round)
    1974: Brazil vs Yugoslavia 0-0 (Fourth)
    1970: England vs Romania 1-0 (Q/F)

    #2
    West Germany 1958 and Brazil 1966 too.

    Is it the coach and old guard sticking around too long, lack of fresh ideas, ennui or simply the natural cycles that all teams go through? Spain were probably just victims of timing: if they'd started their peak two years later, they'd have been double champions or been least contesting the 2014 semis.

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      #3
      I think nerves play a rule, too. Germany's set-up have stressed at length how they are the 'hunted' and how their pressure will be inhumane. They'd have been better off persuading themselves that they are starting with a clean sheet.

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        #4
        Didn't Brazil get beat by France in '06?

        Never mind, I didn't read the thing properly.

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          #5
          Originally posted by G-Man View Post
          I think nerves play a rule, too. Germany's set-up have stressed at length how they are the 'hunted' and how their pressure will be inhumane. They'd have been better off persuading themselves that they are starting with a clean sheet.
          The Mexican fiasco was more about overconfidence and complacency than about nerves. They thought they were going to camp near the Mexican box all game long and left themselves vulnerable to counters.

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            #6
            They did that against France in 2016 too. I'm just not convinced they can track quick counters.

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              #7
              For my analysis...

              Pro Offense
              Germany should have scored 1, and probably could have scored 2 more. (Granted, Mexico should have scored 2 more, and could have scored 3. But Germany always gets away with that.)
              Mexico's defense was so impressive in that they almost always got a foot on the ball, almost always covered that 1 meter space when a shot was coming. Does Sweden and S. Korea have that quickness to block shots on defense? Remains to be seen.

              Con Offense
              4 years ago, they have the quickness to get those shots off. Like Formula 1, they've simply lost a few precious milliseconds with age. They could always count on a high cross to beat a team like Mexico. Mexico and just about every Latin American team has learned to defend crosses. 2002's team without crosses to Klose or Ballack? Do they get out of the first round?

              They relied on counterattacks from 2006-2012, and it worked until a team like Spain simply did not lose the ball. Then went back to the possession football of the 1986-1992 era with Pep Guardiola's teachings for an incredible 2014 tournament. Now they're too slow to break a team down in the other end, and too slow to stop the counter. Do they even win a game this time?

              Is it too late to just go back to a counterattacking side?

              -------

              Pro Midfield
              I mean maybe Ozil has one of those useless games he had for Arsenal when he scores 2 against Huddersfield after they lose 6-0 in Champions League. Maybe Kroos hits one of those curving 30/35-yarders. Maybe Mueller and Khedira find the quickness for a 1-2 on the edge of the box.

              Con Midfield
              They won't. Korea has never been afraid of Germany, and neither has Sweden. They'll rip them to shreds. Unless they go to Germannaccio.

              --------------------
              Pro Defense
              In many ways, this was a game Boateng was cemented as a wonderful, all-time player. It was 5 on 1 all game, and that big oak did all he could against those speedsters. I'd say nothing short of heroic. (I think of the story Leonard Susskind told in The Black Hole War, about how Stephen Hawking would look at Susskind out of the corner of his eye on top of one of those giant hills in San Francisco, and would lean forward and bomb down the hill in his wheelchair. I'll leave it at that.)

              You want to control the game, have Boateng, Hummels, and Neuer control the box. Keep them from having to cover 40-60 meters. Play Germannaccio.

              Con Defense
              Like Linus said, that was nothing to do with nerves. That was having no quickness to break down the opponent, and no speed to cover ground. Their starting team's age was over 300 years old (301.)

              Play to your strengths. France 2006. Put some young dummies to do all the running like Ribery for Zidane, defend in numbers, and catch a few off the break.

              Either Löw is that stupid to put that gameplan we saw in place, that devoted to his former champions that already sucked immensely against France, that arrogant that they didn't have to prepare or respect their opponent...or that one-foot-in-the-graved team is a bunch of old, false-toothed, decrepit, knock-kneed, wheelchair-walker-needing, lactic-acid-builduped, stuck-in-the-mud, dehydrated beef jerky musculo-skeletal-fascial tendoned, glacial metabolismed, rest-needing, testosterone-losing, pensioner-bus-caravaning oldsters who won the title they had to win at their peak, became the first team from one part of the sphere we live on to win in the other part of the sphere we live on, and need to realize their hopes are the same that Volkswagon had about being found out how their cars ran on diesel.

              Comment


                #8
                There's a danger in overvaluing that game. Those who think there were no nerves involved have not read the comments by Löw and the players: they are feeling incredible pressure. One could see it in the body language of the players, and in the play in the final third. Tactically, obviously, Mexico outsmarted Germany. Faced with a gameplan they hadn't expected, Germany failed to react. And, indeed, there's some dead weight that needs shedding.

                But: this is a side that walked through the qualifiers with a 100% record. The quality is there, a poor run notwithstanding. Germany has a habit of struggling in at least one group game (more often the second). It usually prompts a recallibration. Of all coaches at the World Cup, Löw knows how that works. As jv has intimated, Germany will be well-served to play deeper, and let the speed of Werner and Reus, and Müller's unorthodox runs, work for them. Ozil is surplus. I expect Germany to beat Sweden and South Korea.

                Having said all that, Mexico have shown that Germany are vulnerable. I'd not be shocked if Germany go out to Switzerland or Brazil in the second round.

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                  #9
                  I'd be shocked because Germany have made the last 8 for as long as I can remember. But they have never met Brazil in the last 16, either.

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                    #10
                    I can see Argentina fu**ing it up, even with Messi. But not Germany. Especially not now.

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