Germany V England: The Aftermath; What Went Wrong for Germany

I'm not going to divulge into any introduction stating the rich history between the two nations, it makes this loss feel even worse when thinking about that. The scoreline at the end of 90 minutes was 2-1 to England. Now here is my view on why that happened.

First of all, the morale is tremendously low and it's not hard to see why. All the pre-match hullabaloo was about the off-pitch rift between experienced players Ballack, Frings, and manager Low and it effected everyone.

I personally think Low overreacted to both comments and didn't need to take the drastic steps he took. 

When it comes down to the match, the first thing I remember saying when I saw the Germany team sheet was "What the Hell is Low thinking?!" Debutante Marvin Coomper at LB? He hasn't even played a minute at LB for Hoffenheim this season! Marcel Schafer or even Westermann at LB would have been a much better choice.

Then seeing Jermaine Jones in midfield with Simon Rolfes was frustrating. Low is starting to have a habit of playing two defensive midfielders whenever Ballack has been unavailable, which is a lot lately. That is something which has never worked out well for the Germans given their style of play.

Jermaine Jones, in my opinion, has never been Germany quality and was utterly poor the last time he donned a German shirt. This performance was no different. While Rolfes held his own pretty well, Jones was running around like a headless chicken mis-controlling every pass that came to him and never looking to do anything productive.

It wasn't a surprise then to see a much better German performance when Schweinsteiger moved to a more central position in the second half, something I've been stressing a lot lately.

The last of my worries from seeing the team sheet was the striking partnership of Klose and Gomez. It is never going to work. I said that before the Euros and wasn't proven wrong and I'm saying it again. Its not that either player is bad, its just that they cant combine with each other. 

It might have had possibilities a few years ago with a younger and better playmaker, Klose, the one who provided 16 assists in the 05-06 season with his sublime one touch passing. But now he is a shadow of that player and seems out of his league when receiving the ball from more than 16 yards out.

The same with Gomez, he actually looks like an utter buffoon when the ball is at his feet outside the box. He more often then not mis-controls it and his passing makes Luca Toni look like Andrea Pirlo. He is a class finisher, with emphasis on finisher, he's a target man. But more often than not he received the ball 30 yards from goal with hardly any space. This brings me to my next point.

The tactics that Germany came out with were poor to say the least. Playing with Klose-Gomez upfront and Jones-Rolfes in midfield, one would expect a long ball game with the defence and deep lying midfield try to seek out the strikers with long passes.

No! Lets try and play quick short passing football. It was an utter disaster! I never quite knew what they were trying to accomplish while in possession. Yes England's midfield did a splendid job of closing down their opponents, but of course they will when Low plays two defensive midfielders in the centre and our two best playmakers on the wings.

Jones and Rolfes have never had the first touch Ballack has and therefore they were always going to struggle with the team expecting them to create offensive plays. They don't have those roles for club so why did Low expect that from them?

Whenever they received the ball they struggled to maintain possession and thus either lost the ball trying to play it forward or ended up passing back to the defence. Both Jones and Rolfes lacked any forward movement to trouble Barry and Carrick and thus made it a piece of cake to cover them.

It was when Schweini moved in the centre that Rolfes was allowed more space to seek out the forwards and wingers. Since, with a more attacking central midfielder, England's central midfield had to push back to try and restrict him. 

With Klose and Gomez receiving passes at their feet with their back towards goal, there really isn't much they can do as it isn't either's strength. It was in that situation that they needed Helmes/Podolski to be able to run at the defence and cause havoc, just like they did when they came on.

The second half though was a vast improvement because of the changes Low made. While you could commend him on that, the question is why he wasn't wise enough to realise that before.

It was the a similar issue against Wales in the previous match where Germany were struggling to create clear opportunities with a tiring Ballack in central midfield. Not after the break when Schweinsteiger moved to a more central playmaker role did the offense start to click.

I'm not going to criticise the defence, they were good when they were called upon. Mertesacker and Westermann were very good in the center considering they were against two very quick and inform strikers, when they lost out on pace their great positional skills removed any danger.

Regarding the goals; Adler may have flapped the corner that gave away the first goal, but he is still the best 'keeper in Germany. This one mistake shouldn't ruin the two years of brilliant consistency he has shown for Leverkusen and take away the No.1 jersey.

And you cant blame Westermann for Terry's goal, it was a peach of a header. Westermann did everything you would expect while defending a set-piece, he was in front of his man and looked set to clear the ball had Terry not stuck his neck out and somehow guided it to the far corner.

All in all it the match was ultimately lost in central midfield, I could go on with the article looking at the performances of the wingers but those weren't as important as the issues above. Low needs to go over his tactics and seriously consider not playing two DMs again and playing Schweinsteiger at LM when Ballack isn't fit.

I'm starting to lose my respect for Low as a tactician. I thought a lot of him when Klinsmann said he was the brains behind Germany's reformed style of football but now it seems he cant cope with the pressure of being the head of the squad.

And please don't comment saying that it was "just a friendly" because it was only in name. A lot more things matter than three points. There's pride involved, thankfully we only lost one today.