This has been a difficult start to the World Cup for Germany but there are two positives. First, they have their own destiny in their hands and would go through to the knockout phase with a two-goal win against South Korea. And second, their problems are readily identifiable: a midfield that does not protect the defence in transition and a forward line that, so far, has lacked an edge.
Jogi Löw, the Germany manager, has been concerned enough to have “a lengthy chat” with Thomas Müller. “After the match against Mexico we tried to analyse his way of playing with the help of videos and clips,” Löw said. “He is somebody who is very open to comments and also critical in self-appraisal.”
There is not much Löw can do about that, and the carousel of four rotating forwards he fielded in the second game looked extremely dangerous until Sweden took the lead and provoked a measure of panic.
The structure of the side, though, is his department. Mexico and Sweden were gifted opportunity after opportunity to counterattack down the flanks as Germany’s full-backs pushed up with no real cover offered by the back of midfield, even if Sebastian Rudy, who has a broken nose and will not be available, and then Ilkay Gündogan made a better fist of it in the second game than poor Sami Khedira, his legs seemingly gone, did in the first.
That has been a persistent problem of late, with Germany conceding in each of their past seven games, a run stretching back to the 0-0 draw with England in November. The return of Mats Hummels from a neck injury should help but Jérôme Boateng is suspended. “If you look at all of those matches we are vulnerable to fast breaks and counterattacks,” Löw said. “It’s not always down to the defensive line: if we have three or four players racing towards the defensive line it’s an unfortunate situation. Against Sweden we were better in transition to a defensive action.”
Better, but far from perfect. “South Korea have players who can use the space when it opens up,” Löw said. “It would be helpful on the whole if we could lose the ball less often.”
In terms of player development and tactical approach, Germany have seemed recently a beacon of modernity, but there is a curious sense with this side that they are surviving on more traditional virtues. Two things changed for Germany at the 2006 World Cup, when Löw served as assistant to Jürgen Klinsmann.
As they embraced progressiveness, two things were supposed to have been laid to one side: the dependence on Führungsspieler – leaders on the pitch – and the belief in themselves as a Turniermannschaft – a tournament team; one, that is, that had a mental strength that meant they did not really have to play well to make progress through a tournament, just as the stodgy 2002 side had somehow reached the final.
This was all part of Klinsmann’s revolution, itself part of the wider process of Das Reboot that overhauled academies and embraced the pressing game to which Germany had for so long been resistant. Yet Germany won the last World Cup and are still in this one because, when they needed it, they found the requisite inner drive and ruthlessness: there is a steel beneath the beauty. It allowed them to scramble through against Ghana and Algeria in 2014, and to stifle France and Argentina, and that quality was there again in abundance against Sweden.
Toni Kroos, making up for his error, was just the sort of leader Germany needed him to be before bending in the brilliant winner. The mocking nature of the post-match celebrations that so angered the Swedes, while a world away from the antics of, say, the 1982 side, suggested that at least some of the old arrogance remains.
The contrast with a South Korea who seem to have given up hope could hardly be more pronounced. Their coach Shin Tae-yong, who will be without the injured Park Joo-ho and Ki Sung-yueng, has come up with a variety of excuses to explain away his side’s poor performances all tournament. Sweden were too tall, while the defeat to Mexico was the result, apparently, of structural problems within the Korean league.
Here, he seemed vaguely irritated that Germany had not qualified already and so will be playing a full‑strength side. “There is not enough time to fully prepare strategically for a match with Germany,” he said. “Even if we have improved the teamwork I don’t think it will be easy. We have a one per cent chance, a very slim hope.”
Shin did, though, perk up when it was suggested he physically resembles Löw. “He is very fashionable,” he said.
That was almost certainly a comment on his appearance, but his remark did seem inadvertently to hint at a pervasive sense that there is a superficiality to Löw, that his greatest gift as a coach is to have been in charge at just the right time to capitalise on a supreme generation of players. Now is the time for Löw to show he is a coach of substance and correct the structural flaw.
