Germany vs. Portugal: 6 Things We Learned from Euro 2012 Group B Showdown

Portugal fought hard and created a few good chances to score, but in the end, they couldn't outdo Germany efficiency. The Germans themselves didn't have a great game, but they got the goal they needed and defended well for most of the game.

Portugal now needs to pick themselves up quickly if they still hope to advance from the Group of Death. Their performance was an improvement on their 1-3 loss to Turkey, but Portugal are now winless in four games in 2012 and running out of time to live up to their potential.

Anything less than three points against Denmark will almost surely mean the end of Portugal's tournament.

As for Germany, it wasn't pretty, but their performance was filled with bright spots, and they'll feel much more relaxed than the Netherlands going into their match on Wednesday.

What exactly do Portugal need to improve on though, and what can Germany be happy with from this game?

We'll look at that and more in the coming slides.

One Good Striker Away from Greatness

Helder Postiga has been in good form for Portugal over the last year or so. Over the last five Euro 2012 qualifying games, Postiga scored five goals, including two in the team's big 6-2 triumph over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

But that shouldn't disguise the fact that Postiga is a very average striker. Since scoring 10 goals in 24 matches for Porto in 06/07, Postiga's strike-rate has shifted between very mediocre to abysmal, and eight goals in 2,632 minutes for Real Zaragoza was considered to be a major improvement for the striker this season.

Unfortunately, Portugal's options are very, very limited. Hugo Almeida is Portugal's only other tried-and-tested true striker, but he's practically a copy of Postiga. He's a bit bigger and has a bit of a better club strike-rate throughout his career, but he currently plays in a worse league than Postiga.

It's a shame, because Portugal have plenty of quality in every other part of the pitch. The Portuguese league's rising quality ensures the team always has a regular stream of good defenders and midfielders to pick from, and Real Madrid's present obsession with Portuguese players also helps the national team.

But despite these two factors, neither Real Madrid nor the Portuguese domestic league has produced a Portuguese striker of decent caliber in many years. And as long as that continues, it will likely be Portugal's biggest weakness and downfall on the international stage.

Typical Mario Gomez

How Paulo Bento and Portugal must wish they had a Mario Gomez to call upon in their squad.

Gomez's performance vs. Portugal was vintage Gomez. He didn't dominate the game, and Germany's offense didn't really flow through him either as you'd expect it would with him being such a large target man.

But Gomez worked hard to stay open and find dangerous positions, and it paid off with the winning header in the 72nd minute.

In a way, Gomez's performance for Germany was very reminiscent of Miroslav Klose is his prime. Gomez's hard work of course ensures that he goes missing much more infrequently than Klose did, but it ensures that he finds himself in good scoring positions, which is what Klose was and still is all about.

This will surely not be the last we see of Gomez, and who knows, this may be the tournament where he finally earns international recognition as one of the world's best strikers. He's certainly done himself no harm in producing the winner against one of the better teams in the competition.

Portugal's Midfield Lacked Creativity

Portugal's three-man midfield for this match consisted of Raul Meireles, Miguel Veloso and Joao Moutinho—all solid, talented midfielders, but all very similar in what they do.

They pass, tackle, drive forward when their team has possession...but they don't have the football IQ to create remarkable scoring opportunities the way an Andrea Pirlo, Mesut Ozil or Wesley Sneijder would.

Yes, Miereles and Moutinho can both be considered attacking midfielders, and have featured heavily in that role throughout their careers, but they have never been known for their vision or creativity.

They're known for being good all-around midfielders, almost box-to-box midfielders; they possess the full complement of skills that you'd want in any midfielder and aren't particularly good at any one trait.

Therefore, they'll get in on the scoring when the team is in the ascendancy and may even finish off a good sequence of attacking play but will rarely be the difference makers or creators in a tight game.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what Portugal need at these Euros and what they've been lacking for some time.

It's games like these that show how much Portugal needs and misses Danny—their creative attacking midfielder who plays for Zenit St. Petersburg. The Portuguese playmaker was ruled out of the Euros back in February with a long-term knee injury, but his absence is really being felt by the team now.

There's little that Portugal can do now to fix their creativity gap. One option is to give Hugo Viana the opportunity to start in midfield, but such a move is very risky considering Viana's history of failing to live up to expectation.

Nevertheless, he's had a good season with Braga, looks to finally be living up to the billing at the club level and could be Portugal's only hope of getting past Denmark and the Netherlands in their next two group games.

Mats Hummels: Best Centre-Back in the World?

Ninety-five touches (game-high), 2-of-2 aerial duels won, two tackles, six interceptions (game-high), 10 clearances (game-high), one shot blocked, 72 passes (game-high), 89 percent pass accuracy and seven accurate long balls (game-high).

That's Mats Hummels' stat line for his performance against Portugal. It wasn't always pretty, but Hummels dominated against the Portuguese.

While his teammate Holger Badstuber made a number of mistakes and almost gifted Portugal the winning goal when the ball passed through his legs to Varela, Hummels was often on hand to clean up those mistakes and make vital interception after vital interception.

Of course, it would be foolish to forget about Hummels' horror show in Germany's 5-3 loss to Switzerland. Clearly, consistency is still an issue for Hummels on the international stage.

But his performance today shows that he's indeed able to transfer his club form to the international stage, and if he produces more performances like this, Germany can count on many more clean sheets. 

Portugal Still Miss Ricardo Carvalho

I said it after Portugal's friendly loss to Turkey, and I'll say it again: The Pepe and Bruno Alves partnership just doesn't seem to be working out.

Pepe is strong and wild centre-back who gives you aggression and tenacity in defense. He's generally solid, but his tenacity means he'll make one or two mistakes that may or may not really hurt his team.

Today, that mistake was losing Gomez, and it costs his team the game.

I don't want to claim that Ricardo Carvalho would've definitely prevented Gomez's goal if he were playing alongside Pepe. Odds are he's just as powerless to do anything about it as Bruno Alves was when it went in.

But beyond the goal, there doesn't seem to be much chemistry between the two players. They seem to be almost carbon copies of each other; Pepe is probably a bit wilder than Alves, but in general, both of them are tall, physical and good in the air.

Joachim Low opted with Holger Badstuber and Mats Hummels because he knew they would complement each other well, since they both cover each other's weakness.

At Real Madrid, Jose Mourinho utilized Carvalho alongside Pepe for the same reason; having one small, cautious centre-back and one big, tenacious centre-back allows the duo to handle the variety of attacking threats that come their way.

But because of his feud with Carvalho, Bento has ruled out that option for Portugal. And against Germany, the lack of options in the center of defense seemed to really hurt Portugal, as it did against Turkey.

Germany Will Need to Be More Clinical

Lukas Podolski tried to do his best impression of Arjen Robben with three badly off-target shots against Portugal, but he wasn't the only German guilty of wastefulness on offense.

Sami Khedira had all three of his shots miss the mark as well, while Thomas Mueller missed a really good scoring opportunity in a sequence of badly mishit shots for Germany in the first half.

Being a little rusty in the first match of a tournament is nothing to worry about, especially when you have someone like Gomez to bail you out, but Podolski and Mueller will really need to improve both their shot selection and shot placement before they take on the Netherlands.

That game will be much more cut-throat than this one was, since there will be much more on the line, and with a plethora of options on the bench, Joachim Low won't be afraid to make changes if he doesn't like what he sees.

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