Sports

Looking at Germany in the 2014 World Cup

Rick Olivares - The Philippine Star

July 2, 2014 | 10:54am

It’s the knockout stages and I don’t expect any more blowouts such as the Dutch’s opening match shellacking of Spain or Germany’s dismantling of Portugal.

A total of 204 countries competed for the right to play in Brazil. And now, of the 31 who planed in to host Brazil’s shores, there are 16 left. Well, there are actually 12 left as four have been ousted in the Round of 16.

Looking at the German national team, there are five holdovers from the 2006 squad that began this revival of Die Nationalmannschaft football: Miroslav Klose, Lukas Podolski, Philip Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Per Mertesacker.

There are 11 from their South Africa unit – Klose, Podolski, Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Mertesacker, Manuel Neuer, Sami Khedira, Mesut Ozil, Thomas Muller, Toni Kroos, and Jerome Boateng.

Since there is a large contingent from the South Africa games and all who have seen action in Brazil, I looked at their scoring.

In 2010, they finished 2-0-1 in their group stage matches losing 1-nil to Serbia in their second outing. They scored five goals for a plus-four goal difference.

Once in the knockout stages, they hit their stride, killing England, 4-1, then Argentina, 4-0, before losing 1-nil to Spain in the semifinals.

This 2014, Germany finished 2-1-0 in their group and scored seven goals for a plus-five goal difference.

In their Round of 16 match, they sent off Algeria, 2-1.

Now let’s take a look at their statistics in their first four matches (other country’s stats on the left and Germany’s to the right).

Country	Attacks	Total Attempts	Deliveries in PK area	Clearances	Passes Completed
Portugal	36-42	14-13	6-9	8-11	391-483
Ghana	33-45	20-11	7-7	17-10	335-584
USA	17-53	4-13	2-13	19-12	363-725
Algeria	25-50	11-29	2-16	19-21	335-768

Attempts

Country	Total	On-target	Goals	Blocked	Saves	Off target	Woodwork
Portugal	14-13	9-9	0-4	5-2	4-2	5-4	0-0
Ghana	20-11	10-6	2-2	2-2	5-2	10-5	0-0
USA	4-13	1-9	0-1	1-3	0-5	3-4	0-0
Algeria	11-29	7-22	1-2	2-9	4-11	4-7	0-0

Possession

Country	Possession
Portugal	46%-54%
Ghana	41%-59%
USA	37%-63%
Algeria	37%-63%

Attacking

Country	Attempts	Set pieces	Crosses	Corners	Offsides	Free Kicks
Portugal	14-13	4-3	21-17	6-4	1-2	10-12
Ghana	20-11	2-2	15-23	3-7	5-1	12-22
USA	4-13	0-0	7-27	2-3	2-7	16-17
Algeria	11-29	2-0	21-30	4-10	4-4	15-24

Defending

Country	Saves	Clearances	Recovered balls	Lost balls	Tackles won
Portugal	2-4	8-11	38-48	76-72	4-7
Ghana	2-5	17-10	50-40	70-85	1-1
USA	5-0	19-12	31-41	63-68	8-8
Algeria	11-4	19-21	65-68	115-120	12-7

Interestingly, in Germany’s Round of 16 match, they played the best defensive team in the tournament in Algeria. Les Fennecs, or “the Foxes” as Algeria is nicknamed, have totaled in four matches 97 tackles, 23 saves, and 15 blocks.

Passes

Country	Short	Medium	Long	Total	Completion rate
Portugal	113-138	307-361	71-89	491-588	80%-82%
Ghana	112-163	256-483	85-67	453-713	74%-82%
USA	131-207	261-545	66-67	458-819	79%-89%
Algeria	144-221	261-631	99-88	504-940	66%-82%

The Germans are tops so far in the tournament when it comes to passing with 2,560 passes completed for an 84% completion rate.

Goals

Country	1^st half	2^nd half	Last 15 minutes	1^st extension	2^nd extension
Portugal	0-3	0-1	0-1	NA	NA
Ghana	0-0	2-2	0-0	NA	NA
USA	0-0	0-1	0-0	NA	NA
Algeria	0-0	0-0	0-0	0-1	1-1

The summary in scoring thus far: Germany nine goals for and three goals against.

Looking at the Germans, their passing has been impressive and impeccable. The knock on them as they have become more attack-minded since 2006 is they are susceptible to counter-attacks. In Brazil, they have looked slower than their opponents.

They looked especially vulnerable to the Ghanaians and the Algerians.

In their last two World Cups, Germany kicked it up another level once they arrived in the knockout stages. So far, after that opening day bamboozling of Portugal, they haven’t exactly killed it just yet. Maybe in their next match, they’ll start to really roll.