ALRIGHT PAL: Team-mates Ozil and Khedira both starred in Real Madrid’s La Liga winning campaign
By Rob Dore
When Joachim Loew decided to leave out Mario Gomez (26), Thomas Mueller (22) and Lukas Podolski (27) for Germany’s quarter-final with Greece, the general opinion was that he was taking an unnecessary risk. The Greeks had shown themselves to be resilient in the group stages and as comparisons were being made with the Euro 2004 winning side, the stage was set for things to blow up in Loew’s over-confident face.
They didn’t. Instead Germany put in their most convincing performance of the tournament so far, orchestrated by Mesut Ozil (23) and Bastian Schweinsteiger (27) in midfield.
So good was their attacking performance that Gomez, Mueller and Podolski will be worrying about getting back in the team.
Ozil will have no such concerns and the Real Madrid midfielder is now confidently talking up Germany’s chances of winning Euro 2012.
“If we play to our potential, we will beat the Italians…Italy are very strong, they are superbly organised but if we play as we can, we will win….We are here to win the European title and I am convinced we can do it,” he said.
Currently Germany are the 7/4 second favourites behind defending champions Spain at 13/8. With Del Bosque’s side starting to look tired and not having a striker he feels confident in, Ozil has every reason to believe Germany can win their fourth European Football Championship.
It would certainly cap an excellent season for Ozil, having played a key roll in Real Madrid’s winning the La Liga crown. Cristiano Ronaldo may have stolen the headlines at the Bernabeu but Ozil’s 17 assists and four goals this season mark him as a key contributor to their success. He doesn’t score too often, though eight goals in 37 international games from a midfielder is not to be sniffed at, but he will be a key component in Germany’s attack against the well-organised and resilient Italians.
Germany’s record against the Azzuri is unusually poor, losing 14, drawing nine and winning just seven of their 30 meetings. This is a very different Germany though and if they show the same energy and determination against Italy as they did against Greece, then Ozil will be right to have one eye on Sunday’s final.
Ozil’s been performing well alright. He’s their key player. The German team setup makes the best of his ability too as he plays more central and seems to get further forward than at Madrid. The wide players in the national team seem to stick fairly rigidly to the wings which allows him to stay in the centre whereas at Real, with Ronaldo drifting up front he’d often find himself moving towards the space he vacated on the left side. Di Maria’s absence during the season didn’t really help either, as it meant he was pushed towards the right on quite a few occasions to fill the gap. Having said that he still had a decent season, just not as good as it could have been.
I’m not sure about Schweinsteiger to be honest though. I’ve never really seen what other people seem to see in him, but the other night against Greece he was particularly poor. He had far too many misplaced passes for a player of that supposed calibre. Thankfully Khedira had a very good game and picked up the slack. Of course it’s since been revealed that the injury he picked up during the season didn’t get enough time to heal properly which almost certainly led to the sub-par performance, but then you’d have to question why he was picked to play against Greece? Surely a fully fit Gundogan or Kroos are better than a semi-fit Schweinsteiger.
Podolski is hit and miss, but he’s probably the preferred choice to Schurrle who struggled the other night. Keeping Reus in is a no-brainer though. He had a better season than Muller and should have been in the side on merit from the beginning.
Loew’s seeming unwillingness to put Dortmund players in the team is a bit puzzling though. For me, the ideal solution would have been to put Schmelzer in at left back and push Lahm to right back instead of Boateng, and had Mertesacker not been returning from injury, Hummles might not have even gotten a start in the team and now he’s getting rave reviews. Get Gundogan in for Schweinsteiger, Jogi!