Quote (ampoo @ 14 Jun 2016 23:01)
i was most impressed with croatia to be honest
and for germany....hummels returning is nice, but that wont solve our problems on the full back positions
mustafi had a good game and could easily start another with no worries
croatia had a very strong showing indeed - i was very impressed as well. italy and especially spain, however, have that special confidence and overall a higher tactical and individual quality in their players imo. croatia on the other hand, despite having some undeniably class players like modric, rakitic and mandzukic, relies heavily on the rest of the team playing at the very peak of their abilities to deliver class performances - which most of the times happens when they are wearing the national jersey - but they are doomed if some of their more average players have average performances imo...
concerning germany i agree and already said it before the ukraine match: our main problem are the fullbacks and you're absolutely right, hummels can't fix that.
however, despite his goal i don't think it was a particularly good game from mustafi. don't get me wrong, i would have picked him too as backup cb but i feel his performance was somewhat lacking in terms of communication / organisation and positioning which made the exposed wings evem more dangerous. he also had a couple of individual mistakes, one of which created a chance for konoplyanka right at the start of the game. if boateng / mustafi had just easily dominated the centre, those crosses would not have resulted in so many chances...
again, main blame is on the fullbacks and mustafi didn't have a terrible game or anything - but i still think hummels will add some stability to our defense...