Gary Lineker once said that “football is 11 against 11, and in the end Germany wins” and German history seems to support this idea. The current world champions, were the semi-finals in 13 of the 18 World Cups played, and in 8 out of 11 Euro semi-finals. In fact, the biggest surprise may well be that thay haven’t won this tournament since 1996, because they’d never been more than 16 years without winning a European Championship.
Joachim Löw’s side is for almost everybody one of the favourite, and if there is something that you can nitpick on this group, it should be their defense, especially on the right side where the doubt between Emre Can, after a whole season playing as a defensive midfielder for Liverpool, or Howedes, which was one of the surprises of the last world cup, playing every minute of the sometimes demolishing journey to the 2014 title. If we add the questions marks around the physical capacity of Hummels, it easily proves this to be the more debilitated sector of the team.
In midfield Kroos and Khedira will be the ones with defensive duties, but from then up only Ozil has his starting job guaranteed, since Muller, always a starter and probably the best scorer of the squad, can mix up the battle for the right wing spot. If this happens, enter Mario Gomez, forward, after a well-rounded season for Besiktas (33GP, 26GS).
In the other midfield role, Gotze, despite the off season at Bayern, or Draxler, who failed to carry all the influence he had in Schalke to Wolfsburg’s football, are the main contenders.
Regardless of who plays, it will always be a very strong midfield and attack, able to create enough offensive movement, and with a creativity that we only recently began to see in the Mannschaft’s style, all blended together with the usual effectiveness and coolness.
So, Germany wins in the end?
RF EN 