What Germany showed in the 2-0 win was that we (Africa in particular) still do not understand the real dynamics of football and team preparation. Our coaches think football is just about playing a certain formation that allows eleven players running around the pitch for 90 minutes.
They fail to understand that football is like a political game or race. You need to plan ahead by looking for errors or loopholes to capitalize on to cause first class damage to your opponents.
Horst Hrubesch (Germany's coach) knew that the Nigerian strength was attack and press so he planned and successfully negated these strengths. But how did he achieve it? Yesterday I Pointed out five things we can capitalize on to wreck havoc on the Germans.
They got an early goal
The only game that the Dream Team had gone behind before Wednesday’s loss to Germany was their third group game against Colombia, and they also lost 2-0. So Hrubesch set out his players to get an goal, knowing that the Nigerians would be slow to respond.
This worked based on the two major absentees. There was no Azubuike Okechukwu to pass the ball from defence into attack and there was no direct running from Oghenekaro Etebo.
They stopped Mikel From dictating play
Hrubesch knew that the more time Mikel Obi had on the ball, the more influence he would have on the game so they set out to ensure that he did not have time on the ball. Mikel was fouled nine times – the most by any of the players that started the match and not by the same player.
They used the one-two pass to great effect
They detected that the Nigerian team do not have great Chemistry and tactical coordination so they used their movement and tactical awareness to move the ball from one point to the other – making the players that should have been the offensive lynchpins to concentrate more on tracking back to help their team. One of such was the opening goal when Imoh Ezekiel switched off and his team was punished.
They fouled tactically not foolishly
Anytime they saw that the Dream Team were about to get up a steam, they fouled and stopped the play, especially in the second half. They knew that they could not physically compete with the Nigerians so they ensured that their fouls were given away in the middle of the pitch. Check out Sven Bender’s foul on Mikel when there were acres of space in front of the Nigerian.
Many would conclude the loss of both Okechukwu and Etebo caused collateral damage to the team, which could be true but the other truth is that the Germans were tactically superior in all departments. And we still have a lot to learn!
In my pre match post I said that the Germans are so good in the midfield that we cant take control in the midfield. I pointed out the major deficiency they had,which is a shaky right and left full backs.
If coach Siasia had instructed Aminu Umar and Imoh Ezekiel to force play from the wings, we would have seen numerous errors from them.
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