German National Side Has Some Soulsearching to Do

Germany's National Soccer team put in a disastrous performance during its test match against Switzerland in Basel.  During the debut of keeper, Marc-Andre ter Steger, who was a surprise starter for this match, could have had a better start.  He was defeated no less than five times, while the Germans only responded with two goals.  Thus Ottmar Hitzfelds side won convincingly 5-2.  Hitzfeld is the former coach of Bayern Muenchen.

What was missing from the game on the German side was imagination and concentration.  The lineup, although deficient of Bayern stalwarts like Schweinsteiger, Lahm, Gomez, Kroos, Thomas, had big talents like Mario Goetze, Reuss, Schurrle, Matt Hummels, Klose and the Bender brothers.  The team just lacked concentration and cohesiveness.   The Swiss side easily took the midfield and defence of the German side apart and on the front end the strikers were unable to finish the task.

Germany's strategy was to go full speed toward the Swiss side initially, but Switzerland defended well during the first 20 minutes.  After that it was pretty well all Switzerland.

Joachim Loew analyzed the game this way:

We would have never predicted this.  One can't be happy about the result.  It was a dangerous phase of the Euro 2012 preparations.  After many intense training units, the concentration was missing.  There were many mistakes made.

Needless to say Loew isn't happy about this result and he could expect more from a star studded side, even with the FC Bayern players missing. 

Miroslav Klose, who captained the team yesterday, expressed the sentiment of the players.

"Such a performance can't be explained.  We should not look for excuses. This is primarily a head thing. The whole team performed terribly."

Recognizing the problem and doing a proper self-critique is the road to discovery.  There are another two weeks prior to the game against Portugal on June 9th.  The Bayern players will join the team as of tomorrow and will be on the field in the match against Israel on Thursday.


No doubt there will be soul searching between now and Thursday, the key is to put this performance of the team behind them and come out swinging on Thursday.  A good performance against Israel should rebuild the confidence of the German side.  Of course the Bayern players, although key to the team, are dealing with the devastating defeat against Chelsea.