By Eike Zwicker
Coming Sunday play Germany against England, but which team moves into the next round? The German squad could not confirm their marvelous performance against Australia in the other games against Serbia and Ghana. The form of the team shows down. On the other hand the World Cup winner of 1966 showed a solid performance against USA, an unimaginative game versus Algeria, but with a good performance against Slovenia. The form of the team shows up.
However, if we take a closer look at the specific skills of the players, we will see that Coach Fabio Capello has a lot of experienced players at his disposal, like Terry, Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney. Additionally the players are fast, strong and disciplined. If we look at some advantages of the German squad, we will see that coach Joachim Löw has a lot of young motivated talents at his disposal, like Özil, Müller and Badstuber. Furthermore, the Bayern Munich block of five players in the line-up could make the difference.
Beside the fact, that the Germans are a very young team without a lot of experiences, another major problem could be the injuries of important players. The last victims of the German squad are Schweinsteiger and Boateng, at present it is not clear if both players are ready for action. Marcel Jansen could replace Boateng as left defender, but he also had some injury problems in the past. The building site in the midfield could solve Toni Kroos, who showed a good performance in the last Bundesliga season for Bayer Leverkusen.
from my point of view, Germany vs. England is a duel at eye level.
