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June internationals (WC qualifiers and Nations League)

Charles Miller

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Probably not the right place, but there a real possibility that FIFA is going to exclude Ecuador from the world cup due to some legal problem with the registration of the player Byron David Castillo and Italia is going to sneak into the world cup based on the Fifa ranking.
 

KirkDuyt

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Charles Miller said:
Probably not the right place, but there a real possibility that FIFA is going to exclude Ecuador from the world cup due to some legal problem with the registration of the player Byron David Castillo and Italia is going to sneak into the world cup based on the Fifa ranking.
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I heard that a while back, but surely the ticket will go to the team Ecuador beat to qualify and not an extra UEFA country?
 

do.ob

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hasanejaz88 said:
Which makes what Germany did over those 8-6 years even more impressive by reaching the semi-final in every tournament, something no team had done during that era and few have done previously.

We began the the 2014 World Cup with a host of injuries. Leaving out the fact that Gundogan and both Lars and Sven Bender were injured for the tournament, Schweinsteiger and Khedira entered unfit, which was why Low had to go with Lahm in central midfield for the first few matches. Hummels was also unfit throughtout the tournament and was replaced with Mustafi against Ghana and Algeria at RB. Mustafi didn't play at all after that so I don't know why you're judging a team based on someone who played only twice.

Our attack wasn't awe inspiringly amazing, granted, though Spain again were winning most of their matches 1-0 in 2010 as well but no one will say they were crap, but again we were hamstrung with injuries in that area since Gomez wasn't available as a backup to Klose and Reus, the best German player at that time, was also injured. Despite this we still scored a decent amount of goals against good teams.

I honestly don't know why you're so depressed over the 2014 win and make it out as if we were lucky to win or weren't that good a team. We had one sloppy game granted against Algeria but that was down to the extreme tactics Low imployed, and also not having Khedira/Hummels available so Mertesacker/Mustafi played. Also, you can say we were lucky but the reason why we played with such adventurous tactics was because of Low's faith in Neuer's sweeping ability, so he would say he was vindicated in that decision.

It's ridiculous to take down that team we had just to make a point that our current team is good. Tell me, who from the current team would you have over the squad we had from 2010-2016? Kimmich would be it I would presume, over Khedira? Khedira was an amazing player himself who fit into that team perfectly as a foil to Schweinsteiger and Kroos/Ozil so that is debatable.
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I don't think Flick's front three options are individually worse than Löw's, the question is whether they will turn up for the WC. Similar things can be said about central midfield. Kimmich and Goretzka have been one of the best midfield pairs in Europe for years. I think Höwedes was a mediocre CB that didn't add anything at LB and actually got exploited frequently. The one big difference individually for me is Philipp Lahm and maybe a young version of Toni Kroos.
 

Charles Miller

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KirkDuyt said:
I heard that a while back, but surely the ticket will go to the team Ecuador beat to qualify and not an extra UEFA country?
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It should be this way, when you think about it. But in reality its the nt with better ranking that will get the ticket.
 

hasanejaz88

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do.ob said:
I don't think Flick's front three options are individually worse than Löw's, the question is whether they will turn up for the WC. Similar things can be said about central midfield. Kimmich and Goretzka have been one of the best midfield pairs in Europe for years. I think Höwedes was a mediocre CB that didn't add anything at LB and actually got exploited frequently. The one big difference individually for me is Philipp Lahm and maybe a young version of Toni Kroos.
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Blasphemy! Howedes was a great CB and had it not been for constant injuries he would've been on the level of Hummels and Boateng. Regardless, I thought he did really well at LB and matched well with Ozil, who would not back track often therefore leaving Howedes with defending that side himself.

As good as Kimmich and Goretzka are, I don't think they are on the level of Schweinsteiger and Khedira during that period. Goretzka carries more offensive threat than Khedira but Khedira's intelligence in terms of movement and syncronizing himself with Schweinsteiger was great; always goes underrated. Schweinsteiger - Khedira - Ozil/Kroos were only bettered by Spain's midifled during that era.

Regarding the front three, I'm surprised you say Flick's options aren't individually worse. Werner is made out to be a joke here, which is sad because I still think he's a good player (still not better than Klose though). Neither of Havertz, Gnabry or Sane are better than Ozil was at that time and ofcourse Muller of that period was better than Muller now. This is not even including Reus who was a top-10 player in the world in that time for me, though he sadly was never able to replicate that for Germany.

Ofcourse anything can happen in the World Cup. Flick is a great coach, better than Low I feel, and we're helped by the fact that I don't see one dominant team in international football right now. We have a squad good enough to win, especially with Schloterbeck, Sule, Rudiger looking great and solving a massive hole in our defense following the decline of Hummels and Boateng. That being said, I still don't think we're close to the quality of team we had back then.
 

SportingCP96

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It’s those two Benfica cnuts again.

They are dam good

*grinning my teeth
 

joedirt87

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KirkDuyt said:
I heard that a while back, but surely the ticket will go to the team Ecuador beat to qualify and not an extra UEFA country?
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I read Chile had done this before and ended up screwing themselves, so they must be pretty confident that the math works out in their favor. what I thought was weird was this popped as an issue before and was resolved. unless theres new evidence of course.
 

RoyH1

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Conmebol will go nuclear on FIFA if they let Italy participate instead of Chile.
That said, Qatar probably would want Italy to participate and they have a lot of power in football now
 

SportingCP96

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Felix in city with Bernardo and Cancelo would be pornographic. That’s my hot take.
 

Paul_Scholes18

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Samid said:
God we're shit. How are we leading this group?
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Cause you played against us(Sweden) who are even worse plus got that pen that is no pen.

We are playing really bad collectivly. The system change have been a disater so far.
 

SCP

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It’s a pleasure to have Cancelo and Bernardo Silva linking up on the same team, at least playing at home Portugal is looking a decent team, more fluidity and working as a team, away from home I have my reservations if they can sustain this level of play.
 

Mike Smalling

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Great start by Denmark against an admittedly weakened Croatia side. We should clearly go on to win this. There is all kinds of space available with this Croatian defense.
 

RacingClub

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Paul_Scholes18 said:
France are so bad. Not sure they are the obvious world cup favorites.
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Probably look a bit better with Mbappe , Kante, Pogba, Varane etc on the pitch.

This is their B+ team at best.

Still haven't been good though I agree.
 

SilentWitness

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Gordon has continued his form into the U-21 side, his rise and improvement has been immense.
 

Bole Top

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these games are actually worse than friendlies. I'm sick of tired/half arsed football.
 
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