Reaching the semi finals with a squad that rivals Spain's isn't exceeding expectations, that's hardly even reaching expectations.


Imo, in 2010 and 2012 Germany's starting XI > Spain's starting XI (by a narrow margin) , but Spain had a slightly better squad overall (all 23 men), both being a level above the other teams. Yet Germany got two semi-final spots and Spain got two cups.

This post was edited by MGS4BestGameEverMade on Jun 15 2014 12:56pm

Wrong, in both 2010 and 2012 spain deeply relied on barcelona form 2009 qvadruple cl bla bla bla bla, 2011 triple.

All the barca players were at their absolute best. Puyol was rock solid, far from injuries, pique played awesomely, xavi-iniesta tandem worked wonders. You could not have beaten them even if you were to have 20 players on the pitch.

Remember at that time reus was a complete unknown, gotze was just a prospect, you deeply relied on schweinsteiger and not even kroos was guaranteed to be in the team.

Gundogan was playing in nurnberg if i am correct,

This post was edited by B4al on Jun 15 2014 12:44pm

Honestly, Id love such a final. Best moment to take revenge ^^
But first of all, lets see what will happen tomorrow. Still iso some confidence

Yes, let's give no credit to Xabi Alonso, Ramos and Iker Casillas. No barca fanboy banter in your post at all Spain won most of their games 1-0 with amazing saves from Iker in all of them. Swap him with Valdes or Reina and Spain would have one or two cups less than they have today.

But you are right about Xavi-Iniesta playing magically back in the day. Pique was actually a good defender in those days and IMO Puyol was easily top 3 if not the best CB in the world 4-5 years ago.

And who was talking about Gundogan or Gotze in 2010? Podolski, Muller, Ozil, Klose and Gomez. in 2012 Gomez was the third or fourth highest scoring player of the world (after Messi, Ronaldo and possibly Huntelaar), in 2010 Klose was in godlike shape for Germany, there's a reason why he has 69 goals for Germany.

This post was edited by MGS4BestGameEverMade on Jun 15 2014 01:03pm

Never really liked alonso, always thought ramos was overrated bringing too little to the table. And if i recall properly the centre backs were puyol-pique, not puyol-ramos, ramos either played wing or did not play.

Casillas was in good shape, so very true. But you can`t really expect me to give credit to 2 madrid players over 6 barcelonistas.

As for germany, ozil was unproven, low can be credited to bringing him in the world stage. He moved to real after 2010 wc, if he did it was partially because of low. Same story as khedira. Another unproven guy.

Gomez was always overrated. But as far as klose is concernet, imo was the best striker germany has ever had. His off the ball, finishing and headers are purely legendary.

You seem to forget : you also got friedrich who was crap, merte who is/was crap, badstuber whi is, as the name says, bad. You had kissling who is/was crap. For fucks sake, you had marko marin and tasci in the squad.

Is this better than spain ? I hardly beg to differ.

sportbild reported the german line up from the last training session today
looks like we will play like this

müller
poldi kroos khedira schürrle
lahm
höwedes hummels merte boateng
neuer

Özil actually being benched?

of course its not 100% sure, but playing this in the last session is a huge indicator
i think the reason for this is that löw wants a little more defense in midfield, löe said so much in the press
he likes özil, so he will play definitely in this tournament

at least your boy poldi plays

This post was edited by ampoo on Jun 15 2014 02:42pm

I'm happy about Poldi ofcourse, but Özil needs to play all of his games in order to perform. (atleasts thats how it is with Arsenal)

still can't believe reus is actually injured...
poldi starter? not good imo...
khedira playing? not good either imo...

this is how i would play:

klose
schürrle - götze - müller
kroos - lahm
durm - hummels - merte - boateng
neuer