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Today's Football - 2023/2024 Season

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Drico said:
Germany can hire whoever they like - they're still crashing out of their own party next summer before the real business begins. They simply do not have the players. The few who are technically good - Kimmich, Havertz, Sane - are either gutless, complacent, mentally weak, or a combination of all three. And most of the rest are second rate. Gösens is held up as a lad with a good attitude, but he's a donkey. The Japanese retired him tonight. The Germans have compounded this dearth of talent with a profound absence of leadership and a soupcon of complacency born of their exploits up to 2014. They've been in decline since that night in Rio, but have been congratulating themselves ever since and were still in denial even after the seismic capitulation in Russia, let alone the abject showing at Euro 2020 and the humiliation of Qatar.

10 months later? Nothing has been learned. Many of the same players who failed in Russia, at Wembley, and in Qatar are still around... What were they expecting? That Kimmich would start showing some leadership? He's more Scrappy-Doo, less Lothar Matthäus.

Living here in Berlin, the pfennig finally appears to have dropped for the public. Flick has to go - but replacing him is a gamble prompted by panic. There is no viable succession plan. France could absolutely humiliate them in Dortmund on Tuesday. That might actually be the best thing in the long run for German football, because the overweening sense of entitlement and self-regarding complacency that has infected German football over the last decade has corroded the short and medium-term future. They'll be waiting for their under-17 European champions to come through before they can hope to be contenders again.
Click to expand...

Surely has to be Nagelsmann tasked to rebuild. Though another name might be Sammer...
 

Billy Dean said:
World football will not be quaking in its boots about a Germany side led by Nagelsmann
Click to expand...
Franz Beckenbauer, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Otto Rehhagel, Jürgen Klopp, Jupp Heynckes, Udo Lattek, Helmut Schoen, or Sepp Herberger couldn't rescue this rabble from itself. A complete rebuild is required. That can't be done in nine months. They just don't have the players. People say they have no world-class striker. Sure. But they don't have a defence worthy of the second division. Schlotterbeck? Really? Rüdiger? Laughable pretend hard man. Gösens? Pub team. Kicker have given them two 6s and a 5 this morning, meaning they played like drunks. With the likes of Thomas Müller - who was a wonderful player - still hanging around like decade-old cheese, it's no surprise they're in the situation they're in. As for Kimmich, what's he won at international level to justify his permament presence in the team? Other than a COVID-impacted Champions League, he's failed over and over again. The same applies to Havertz (Kicker gave him a 5). And these are their better players... So, no leaders.

It's been style over content in Germany since the 2014 World Cup - at least. They forgot what made them the Darth Vader of international football - and, even when they didn't, they didn't want to be Vader anymore. They wanted to be loved. They wanted to wave their flags and congratulate themselves on their beautiful side. Look how progressive we are. To be fair, that was a laudable aim. But they threw out the values that made them the competitors they were. Those "old German" attributes fell out of fashion. Blood, guts, steel, desire - all allied to technical brilliance - is what made them formidably terrifying. But being terrifying was not what they wanted...

So now they are a joke. I remember having conversations at work here in Berlin about the German national side, and was amazed at how self-satisfied my German colleagues were even when it was clear that the team was in abject decline. My God, they were beaten by Ireland in 2015. The defeat to France at Euro 2016 was the moment they had been superseded - but they brushed it off as an aberration. The rest is history.

It will be fascinating to watch the panic now. This week will be great entertainment. I doubt Rudi Völler wants to go down with this ship...
 

Drico said:
Franz Beckenbauer, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Otto Rehhagel, Jürgen Klopp, Jupp Heynckes, Udo Lattek, Helmut Schoen, or Sepp Herberger couldn't rescue this rabble from itself. A complete rebuild is required. That can't be done in nine months. They just don't have the players. People say they have no world-class striker. Sure. But they don't have a defence worthy of the second division. Schlotterbeck? Really? Rüdiger? Laughable pretend hard man. Gösens? Pub team. Kicker have given them two 6s and a 5 this morning, meaning they played like drunks. With the likes of Thomas Müller - who was a wonderful player - still hanging around like decade-old cheese, it's no surprise they're in the situation they're in. As for Kimmich, what's he won at international level to justify his permament presence in the team? Other than a COVID-impacted Champions League, he's failed over and over again. The same applies to Havertz (Kicker gave him a 5). And these are their better players... So, no leaders.

It's been style over content in Germany since the 2014 World Cup - at least. They forgot what made them the Darth Vader of international football - and, even when they didn't, they didn't want to be Vader anymore. They wanted to be loved. They wanted to wave their flags and congratulate themselves on their beautiful side. Look how progressive we are. To be fair, that was a laudable aim. But they threw out the values that made them the competitors they were. Those "old German" attributes fell out of fashion. Blood, guts, steel, desire - all allied to technical brilliance - is what made them formidably terrifying. But being terrifying was not what they wanted...

So now they are a joke. I remember having conversations at work here in Berlin about the German national side, and was amazed at how self-satisfied my German colleagues were even when it was clear that the team was in abject decline. My God, they were beaten by Ireland in 2015. The defeat to France at Euro 2016 was the moment they had been superseded - but they brushed it off as an aberration. The rest is history.

It will be fascinating to watch the panic now. This week will be great entertainment. I doubt Rudi Völler wants to go down with this ship...
Click to expand...
Part of me still thinks with it being Germany they will somehow sort themselves out in time for the Euros
 
Billy Dean said:
Part of me still thinks with it being Germany they will somehow sort themselves out in time for the Euros
Click to expand...
Someone put an article from Wenger up recently and was a good read, specificity about player types and attitudes to play. Klinsmann was quoted in it also.
They decried the modern cookie cutter conveyor belt of player production. Football will evolve some more yet. The good overall doesn't cater for individual brilliance, maybe it's why the ronaldo's and Messi's shine ever brighter.
 
Mikey_Fitzgerald said:
italy drawing is a good result for England

England could maybe put them out if they win at Wembley

I wonder how many points England still need now?

Currently on 13 and 6 clear of Ukraine
Click to expand...
Italy and Ukraine still have to play each other twice, so(if I have my sums right) we need three more points to qualify. As you say, could knock Italy out at Wembley.
 

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