It has been a strange start to Euro 2016, one
that has outlined a tournament of teams who have flickered towards life
without really catching fire.
Nobody has been terrible, nobody has been brilliant, and every side—with the possible exception of Italy—has shown weakness.
What’s most surprising, perhaps, is that two
years on from winning the World Cup, none of the doubts that floated
around Germany in Brazil have been dismissed.
Their opening game against Ukraine showed the best and worst of
Germany. For the first and last quarters of the game they were
excellent, their passing crisp and precise, their movement good.From the 58th minute to the start of injury time, Germany dominated possession to the extent that Ukraine didn’t have a shot. At a time when the Ukrainians were chasing the game, that is remarkable. No side in the first round of games, in fact, had as much possession as Germany did.
And yet at the same time there was a manifest vulnerability. From the mid-point of the first half to about 10 minutes into the second, they creaked and wobbled.
Yevhen Konoplyanka exposed Benedikt Howedes’ slight clumsiness again and again, making him look like exactly what he is, a centre-back playing at full-back.
The suggestion is that with centre-back Mats Hummels likely to be fit enough to start against Poland, Howedes could stand aside for Shkodran Mustafi, who played at centre-back against Ukraine.
Jerome Boateng cleared off the line. There was an effort ruled out for a borderline offside. Manuel Neuer made a couple of good saves. Particularly towards the end of the first half, Germany were rocking.
The question is why? The commonest explanation is complacency. As Germany lost in qualifying to Poland and the Republic of Ireland and then in friendlies to England and Slovakia, the buzzword was Turniermannschaft; tournament team. There was a claim that Germany would raise their level when they needed to.
Poland, perhaps, is the biggest test of that.
At a press conference in Evian-les-Bains, Boateng described Poland as the "most dangerous opponent of the group." Although Germany beat them 3-1 in Frankfurt, the Poles had already won 2-0 in Warsaw.
“We have, among the coaches, analysed our weak points,” coach Joachim Low said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“I think the strength of the Polish team is that they are well organised and they wait for counter-attacks.
"They have a team that is focused on a very quick transition game. They are better than the Ukrainian squad because they have better players for that. They have fast players going forward, not dribbling but one of the strongest counter-attacking teams that I’ve seen over the last two years.
"They have very experienced players playing abroad: [Arkadiusz] Milik, [Robert] Lewandowski. They have a very compact squad with individual quality and, of course, players that play in the Bundesliga and know our players very well.”
In terms of qualifying, it doesn’t really matter. It’s entirely possible that Germany could qualify even with defeats in their final two games. A loss to Poland followed by a draw against Northern Ireland would almost guarantee their passage to the last 16.
This is more about establishing how good this Germany side is and whether the success in Brazil was the beginning or the end of a cycle.
“In comparison to the World Cup two years ago, we now have a deeper squad with players of the same quality,” said Thomas Muller, per the Observer's David Hytner. “So, in that respect, I think we are even stronger than two years ago.”
But the sense of Germany over Low’s decade in charge is of a team that has never quite been at ease with itself.
At Euro 2008, they were surprisingly vulnerable in defence, reprising the open spirit of Jurgen Klinsmann’s side. By 2010, they were devastating playing on the counter but struggled against opponents who refused to come at them.
The attempts to become more proactive since then have been of dubious success. At Euro 2012, Greece exposed how lax they were at the back in the quarter-final before Italy punished them in the semi-final.
Even at the World Cup two years ago, it was a fitful Germany. They were ruthless in thrashing Portugal after the early dismissal of Pepe, and they could hardly have been more surgical in puncturing the absurd nationalistic bubble of Brazil in the semi-final, but around that there were some far less impressive displays.
They were very fortunate, for instance, to draw 2-2 with Ghana in the group stage, and Algeria could easily have eliminated them in the round of 16. It was after that game that Low went on his now-famous jog along the beach during which he decided to restore the 35-year-old striker Miroslav Klose to the starting lineup. The result was two 1-0 wins and the evisceration of Brazil.
Yet still doubts remain about Low—and not just about his personal hygiene (he bafflingly apologised for thrusting his hands inside his trousers during the game against Ukraine, blaming his actions on “adrenaline").
His tournament record is ostensibly superb—final, semi-final, semi-final, winners—and there are those who would argue that he has played a key role in overseeing the development of the new Germany, but the counter-argument is that with these players, whose emergence is a function of the academies and the clubs, Low’s record is only around par.
In terms of indelible performances in the past six years, slaughtering a Brazil high on hysteria—however remarkable that victory will look in the history books—isn’t a great return.
These are quibbles, of course. Low’s leading role in Germany’s resurgence is outlined by Raphael Honigstein in Das Reboot. But having got this far, having implemented a system that has produced players this good—albeit with a shortage of full-backs and centre-forwards—it may be that only one tournament success comes to be seen as a slight underperformance.
The World Cup success brought a sense of relief that that generation had, at last, won something. The question now is whether it can tighten up sufficiently to ensure that triumph is not the sole high point.
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