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\u201cOur cover was often not good and we were left many times with just Jerome (Boateng) and myself in the back,\u201d said centre back Hummels, one of several Germans who will not want to watch a replay of Hirving Lozano\u2019s 35th-minute goal. First Khedira was robbed deep in the Mexico half. Hern\u00e1ndez sniped away from J\u00e9r\u00f4me Boateng and Mats Hummels. A flurry of skimmed passes across the wide-open spaces of the Germany defence left Lozano in space in the area and finished it off beautifully cutting inside Ozil’s futile attempt to offer defensive cover.<\/p>\n
With\u00a0Ozil, Draxler, Mueller pushing forward leaving huge open spaces at the back of midfield, into which Mexico\u2019s three-man attack poured like a green-shirted piranha swarm. This was a champion team out of kilter, stung by what was arguably an act of disrespect to their opponents, a failure to appreciate their threat and the fine planning of Carlos Osorio, and never really able to regain its balance.<\/p>\n
With Jonas Hector ruled out, Marvin Plattenhardt of Hertha Berlin had come in to play at left-back.He only passes backwards when he gets the ball, inviting pressure, without it, he simply sits wide waiting for a crossfield ball and doesn\u2019t make any attacking or overlapping runs. He\u2019s in too advanced a position to be defensively useful on a counter, then when he drops into the defensive 4-4-2 shape he has a terrible habit of dropping too far to play strikers onside behind centre backs \u2013 there\u2019s a communication breakdown between himself and Boateng and Hummels that can be preyed upon. He\u2019s not confident enough with the ball at his feet to be used in attacks, losing possession on more than one occasion.<\/p>\n
Kimmich\u2019s attack-minded tendencies constantly caused Germany serious problems when they lost possession, because Mexico\u2019s dangerman Herving Lozano, playing on the left, remained in a position to counter-attack and regularly found space on the outside of Boateng.<\/p>\n
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2. \u00d6zil-Hole in the midfield: No defensive midfielder to cover the backline<\/strong><\/p>\n The main danger from the Gelsenkirchen-born maestro’s point of view is that Marco Reus, the player set to benefit from Ozil’s possible omission might take his chance to make himself indispensable. Either way, Ozil’s place in the first XI is more precarious than it’s ever been after losing to Mexico. With the likes of Ikay Gundogan waiting and\u00a0\u00d6zil’s place is under threat given his shambolic defensive skills.<\/p>\n \u00d6zil is a virtuoso playmaker who flits, chips, touches and skips around the park. When he sprinted back to attempt to stop Lozano\u2019s goal, videos flooded Twitter mocking his amusing attempt to tackle the agile Mexican. But it\u2019s not his job.\u00d6zil had done not just nothing in the first half, but less than nothing, offering simply an absence, a Mesut-shaped hole. For a while he dropped deeper with more success, driving forward like a featherweight Roy Keane.<\/p>\n Hirving Lozano scored an outstanding goal against the holders in the 35th minute and Mexico were able to hold on for a famous victory. While Ozil is not known for his defending, he undoubtedly could have done better in the lead-up to Lozano\u2019s effort.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3.Lack of proven scorer: Is Werner the right man to lead the German line?<\/strong><\/p>\n RB Leipzig forward Timo Werner looks set to step into the shoes of Thomas Muller as Germany’s leading man. Another much-touted 22-year-old attacker, this time from Leipzig. Not his day, but he showed hunger and made all the right runs. He gets close to the byline frequently and his pace and touch are good weapons. If anything Werner was too hungry to announce himself. He snatched at a shot in the 19th minute on the turn, rather than look for a more effective layoff, but he was constantly nagging the back four with runs into the channel.<\/p>\n Much was made ot the omission of Leroy Sane \u2013 calls that will grow louder now \u2013 and yet many of the issues that Germany faced stemmed from the personnel in their style of play. Getting the ball wide and into the box wasn\u2019t an issue for Julian Draxler or Thomas Muller, but the choice of striker didn\u2019t suit that system at all.<\/p>\n Werner is a finisher and gets ‘s into interesting spaces with supplies coming from Draxler. Kroos and Mueller but he is not a target man like Mario Gomez neither he has the poaching skills like Miroslav Klose. Lowe has to use him tactically if Germany has to outscore their opponent in the World Cup 2018.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4.Marco Rues not in starting XI, Target-man Gomez on the bench.<\/strong><\/p>\n Germany lacked a proper midfield bolt, with Toni Kroos and Sami Khedira huffing around in pursuit of the whizzing green machine. The centre-backs looked flustered, left to deal with three on two as Mexico broke. L\u00f6w\u2019s 4-2-3-1 seemed antiquated and creaky, with the old World Cup shark Thomas M\u00fcller flat-footed in a wide position.<\/p>\n Marco Reus came on for Khedira.\u00a0After the introduction of\u00a0 Marco Rues, the German looked threatening as Germany huffed and switched angles and went wide, slinging in crosses, and finally sending on\u00a0Der Targetman<\/em>, Mario Gomez, for the last 11 minutes. To no avail, as Mexico held on for a sensational win against the defending champions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What followed in Moscow was a strong show of confidence by Mexico and a morale-boosting (and fully deserved) 1-0 victory, while a beaten Germany side\u00a0have some big questions to answer. The most startling aspect of Germany\u2019s play here was their lack of discipline at the back. Time and again their backline was caught out by blistering Mexican counter-attacks and, were the opponents that bit more ruthless, they would have conceded far more than just one goal. 1. Germany’s Backline is Slow and Unprotected: Hummels and Boateng the Slow German Mail \u201cOur cover was often not good and we were left many times with just Jerome (Boateng) and myself in the … Continue reading “World Cup 2018 : Germany’s Glaring Problems that helped Mexico Break the German Wall”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":997,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[397,398,135],"class_list":["post-992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-germany","tag-mexico","tag-world-cup-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/NINTCHDBPICT000414083727-1280x640-730x400.jpg\")
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