The much-reduced German squad which flew to Florida a few days ago includes a number of Schalke players. Questions emerged from the US-Belgium pairing pertinent to Schalke as well. Was emerging young stalwart Julian Draxler a force to be reckoned with in the same midfield mix as Ecuadorean Antonio Valencia of ManU in Orlando or simply "gutted" (knackered) from a long season? My verdict: exhausted and a bit too tentative with his body language and what his team-mates wanted to do with him, or he with them. '
The chemistry should have been there for him paired up as he was with familiar faces like Roman Neustädter or Lars Bender - the new scoring menace - from earlier national team efforts: in fact I saw Draxler's teammate Benedikt Höwedes more conspicuously driving forward as a fullback on the "rampage"- but I guess that catches your eye since you only expect Höwedes to infiltrate the Ecuadorean area without it being a set piece a few times a game from the back four. It is probably part of an offensive scenario decided on by the coach, though it makes him look like a captain getting people fired up, which is already his job in Gelsenkirchen.
Those Multilingual Americans and Germans
Various reporters have given Jermaine Jones good but not top marks for his performance in their team's 2-4 loss against Belgium last night. He is a tenacious and tough defender with great range, but sometimes not-quite-so-steady performer going forward, unless it is aerial. He has been tested in quite a few BL and European campaigns and getting a deserved audition in a lead role under Jürgen Klinsmann: I hope he takes his at times hotheaded over-ambition and the potential for unprovoked macho yellow-worthy fouls to heart as a problem worthy of being remedied, as otherwise it will trip him up.Aresenal players Per Mertesacker and Lukas Podolski put in solid to eye-catchingly dynamic performances respectively, with former Schalker Heiko Westerman, HSV regular Dennis Aogo, and former Leverkusener René Adler representing yet another trio of players from one club - Hamburg HSV. Joachim Löw is cleverly platooning in this reduced 19-man test squad in a way where small sub-units are from one team and thus know each others' moves. Hats off to that sagacity.
I hope Dennis Aogo can acquire a fair bit more aggression so as not to suffer the falling out of grace a too fancy, but insufficiently stout playing style lead to with Piotr Trochowski.
Mertesacker and Westermann are good for headers on set pieces and corners, besides their obvious defending acumen.
As for more areas where players can improve: can these still-rough elements be refined even more by the coaching staff, can a Timothy Chandler be coaxed into being a more lethal closer and controlled strong athlete - and not just be a speedster with a good solid rack of a body. Witness the scoring threat Jonathan Pitroipa now is with Rennes in France, nearly tripling his goal-scoring rate compared to his Hamburg stint. I feel this can be achieved with a young player, especially if the coach of the US team is a former gem of a striker and communicates closely with the regular coach at the player's club.
The fleet-footed attacking Sidney Sam made his German national team debut in tandem with slightly more capped team-mate Lars Bender - thus only lacking Stefan Kießling for a 3-fold Bayer Leverkusen subset of the Nationalelf from the opening whistle. I don't think Mr. Salazar used his whistle again for about 35 minutes after that, encouraging injury-prone fouls. But without top Bundesliga scorer Kießling on the field, that meant soon-to-be Borussia Mönchengladbach-ian Freiburg standout Max Kruse could prove his mettle in his debut, showing good mobility on and off the ball, and the Leverkusen trio - alas - only became a trio when Stefan Reinartz filled in for Neustädter, whose assist to Lars Bender bolstered his chances for inclusion for Brazil in 2014.
Can sharpness/presence be taught?
Last night, during live German TV satellite coverage of the game in Orlando, I think I heard Jogi Loew scream: "Aaron Hunt, play defense!!" at the top of his voice, to snap him out of a bit of lethargy (the season was tough upstream slog, but with career-high 11 BL goals for Hunt) just seconds after he was subbed in. But in his defense, Hunt is a very experienced player with CL cred who paces himself, with dashes of speed when it counts, dishing off smart give-and-goes, and seam-slicing passes at pace and getting off strikes on goal, when it matters, or from the PK spot. This offsets calorie-saving "paced" running on the field or a "down" and inattentive moment as was perhaps seen in the US-Belgian friendly yesterday.
Take for example
Every time the name Christian Benteke comes up, I think of Robert Lewandowski's similarly excellent shielding of the ball when controlling "service" passes, something the two accomplish with unmatched poise, basketball-like positioning skill (box out! to "clear the boards!") and pure strength,with burly physical presence made lethal by adept ball skills in their closing and attacking game.
Seeming nonchalance
Generally speaking, Jerome Boateng and Mesut Özil also both look deceptively nonchalant on the pitch - but that is just appearances - Özil will beat you down the sideline 70% of the time if you are not sharp, and Boateng won't let you outsprint him to a knocked-free ball or to the end-line 95% of the time. I am sure a player like Goodson for the US always wants to have that hustle on defense when it counts. Zooming individual and hopefully one-off errors to the size of Iran in Reagan's mental 1970s/80s world map though, may be counterproductive.
US Outlook and comments about Klinsmann salary
Hopefully, the strongly up-ticking soccer game in the US will see reporters and fans get behind the US players no matter what their "provenance" and Jürgen Klinsmann, no matter what detractors say, while he earns his pay both for qualification and hopefully being a presence in its WC group, for starters. Hopes beyond that are of course fervent, and, as Grant Wahl posited, exacting "damage" in a knock-out phase a likely aspiration given the 2010 showing, provided the team chemistry can come to a good boil, gel and be turned into a much-anticipated Brazilian tournament standout squad.
