There is no room for fragile egos in the Germany squad. The consensus in the aftermath of their 1-0 defeat to Serbia on Friday was that a positive performance had deserved to garner tangible reward.
And if a scapegoat was required, the Germans needed to look no further than the Spanish referee Alberto Undiano, who sent off Miroslav Klose towards the end of the first-half for the softest of second yellow cards.
Undiano peppered an erratic display with a total of nine cards in the match. Joachim Loew, however, is not a man to sugar-coat the assessment of his players.
The traditional “we take the positives and move on” platitudes are not for him.
The boldness of his tactical approach — he made attacking substitutions to chase the game against Serbia — is matched by the candour of his words. His players must simply take them on the chin. Nobody is bigger than Die Mannschaft .
Consider the following exchange between a German journalist and Loew.
The journalist was heavily critical of the substitute Marko Marin, expressing the view that the winger had failed to beat his man and had been sloppy with the ball. Such lines are normally the prompt for managers to pull down the shutters, to come out strongly in defence of the player.
Loew, however, is not bound by such convention. “You are right,” he replied.
“We would have liked Marin to have been stronger in his one-on-ones. He was able to make an impact when he came on against Australia but he was not so successful here. He also lost the ball and tackles. Marin is able to win one-on-ones, you need that with 10 men. But this time, it didn't work.”
Loew added that left-back Holger Badstuber “didn't perform well on the goal, he should have pulled more to the centre (in the build-up)” while he even criticised Klose for giving Undiano a decision to make, however harsh.
On Podolski
“You can give the yellow card,” he said. “My player could have avoided such a tackle.”
It was the frustratingly profligate Lukas Podolski, though, who bore the brunt. Not only did he miss a 60th-minute penalty to equalise, he was off target on other occasions.
He could conceivably have finished with a hat-trick. “Usually, Podolski hammers his penalties but this one was relatively easy for the goalkeeper to save,” Loew said.
“I must say that Podolski had many opportunities and I have not yet been able to talk to him to ask him why he didn't hit the target.” Loew had even picked holes in aspects of the drubbing of Australia.
“There is still room for improvement,” he said, “for example, in terms of closing the space between defence and midfield.”
The perfectionist insists upon the highest of standards and he will not shy from making his point. Germany have the players to take it. — © Guardian News and Media 2010
