By Eike Zwicker
The German squad wasn’t able to repeat their good performance against an excellent Spanish team.
Coach Joachim Löw had to change one position in his line-up because of a yellow card ban of Thomas Müller. The head coach of the German squad decided to trust Piotr Trochowski as right midfielder. On the other side Vicente del Bosque changed as well one position in his formation, he replaced Pedro for Torres.
Right from the beginning the current European Champion had the game under control. “The white eagles” stood wide in their own half of the pitch with the outcome that Spain started their well-known ball movement. Xavi was again the key player in the system of Spain and caused Germany a lot of trouble with his nice passes. But all Spanish midfielders are able to play the decisive pass. Pedro was the one, who created the first chance of the game with a great assist to David Villa, but he failed to score from short distance (7th). Carles Puyol had the next chance to score a goal, but his header missed the goal clearly after a corner (14th).
On the other side Germany failed to play their offensive soccer, as we saw in the last games. At least they could stabilize their defensive; hereinafter Spain had it hard to create promising chances. Germany had just one chance to score in the first half, it was Piotr Trochowski, who shot after a counter attack from 30 meters, but the goalkeeper Iker Casillas saved the long-range shot. Spain was definitely on the point of scoring a goal in the first half.
Both teams came out of the changing rooms without any changes. Now it was obviously that Coach Joachim Löw criticized the defensive behavior of his young team, with the outcome that the former World Cup winner tried to create some chances. Still the better team was Spain. As a result of that Joachim Löw reacted and changed the left defender position, he brought Marcel Jansen for Jerome Boateng (52th). Approximately in the middle of the second half Spain intensified the pressure for the German defense. They developed some chances, but failed every time to score the relieving goal. What was wrong with the German squad? Currently they did not create any chances in the second half! After all it was Toni Kroos, who had the biggest chance to score the lead for the German team, but he failed to score with a volley (70th). A short time later, Carles Puyol scored the lead for Spain with a huge header from 10 meters after a corner of Xavi (73th). Unfortunately, this goal was the preliminary decision, because Germany created no further chances after their deficit.
Coming Saturday Germany plays against Uruguay and it should be the aim to reach the third place.
Line-up:
Neuer – Lahm – Mertesacker – Friedrich – Boateng – Khedira – Schweinsteiger – Trochowski – Podolski – Özil – Klose
Substitutes:
52th Jansen for Boateng
62th Kroos for Trochowski
81th Gomez for Khedira
Bench:
Butt, Wiese, Aogo, Tasci, Badstuber, Kießling, Cacau and Marin
