Germany and Spain are like red clay and grass on a tennis court, one on top of the other, and it feels like they will never play together. But after the first round of Group E matches of the World Cup, we seem to see two Spains playing against two other non-European teams. Of course, one is the real Spain, who won with passing; the other is the fake Spain, whose backpedaling is not only useless, but also annoying.
Pep Guardiola's Barcelona and Spain's 'Invincible Armada', which was based on that team, have had such a profound impact on contemporary soccer that it's incredible that we're seeing this.
It reminds me of an incredibly well edited movie that came out on FIFA's official website last year - "What if Arjen Robben had scored that goal?" It refers to Robben's almost certain counter-attacking volley in the 2010 World Cup, which was incredibly deflected by Iker Casillas' desperate flick of his right foot.
After that, the Spanish "Tiki-Taka" has been imitated in various forms, but never surpassed. It was a wonderful all-attacking, all-defending soccer, but it also gave the subsequent teams a huge fallacy of thinking that the ball would be passed and scored. We must not forget that passing means pressing, and that its aggressiveness comes from opening up space, moving defensive formations, and putting people on the ball to create pressure on the opponent.
One of the most important things about this style of play is accuracy; any mistake out of position can result in a missed goal scoring opportunity, or even create a counter-attack opportunity for the opposition. For it to be successful it needs a set of players who are completely made for this system, plus a long term cooperation, the tolerance for error is not really high. Spain at the time had the best of both worlds, but despite this, during their three consecutive victories in the tournament, the content of their games was actually quite ugly, and they didn't win in style, as evidenced by the fact that it was often 'David Villa scoring and starting a pointless pass in the middle of the 30-40'.
After 2010, Germany began to learn from their toughest opponents and eventually won the 2014 WC. But let's not forget that even though Germany focused on possession control, they still maintained their aggressive attacking tradition, and they also had the World Cup's all-time leading goal scorer, Miroslav Klose, at the time. They are incorporating the virtues of passing into their style rather than focusing on too many loose ends; they don't overstuff their lineups with midfielders or go off the deep end with strikerless formations because that just doesn't work. The Germans may not have the same eye-catching short passes as Spain, but they have their own character and pedigree: a group of strikers who have a keen nose for goal like foxes, and who can pose a great threat to their opponents in front of goal.
But lineups are always in flux, which is why it's so difficult to stay strong, and after the championship year, former
commander-in-chief
Jogi Low never found that balance again. Nowadays, the German team is playing pass-and-control just to cover up certain shortcomings, and the use of the formation and player characteristics is no longer a consideration, but a bit hard to put players stuck in that position. Since the departure of Klose, Germany does not have an orthodox center forward, and since Timo Werner and Lukas Nmecha were injured before the start of this year's Cup, Hansi Flick is facing even more serious problems at the attacking end.
Kai Havertz and Thomas Muller were forced to go into one of those roles in the first two games of the group stage in Cada, but the style of the pair and Germany's formation was more of a pseudo 9, with the former inherently being more of a midfielder, and the latter playing the first four games in the '4-3-3 formation' when Loew led his team to world conquest in 2014 The latter started the first four games in a "4-3-3 formation" under Löw, playing as a starting center forward (essentially a three striker), scoring a hat-trick against Portugal and the game-winning goal against the United States, but again, it must be reminded that that was the system Germany had in place at the time that allowed him to do that, and that in fact he's been more of a lubricant throughout his career, all-around, fundamentally sound, but a bit of an embarrassment when you're looking for him to be the main attacking force... -When Germany was full of personnel and the system was running smoothly, he could score every game, relying on their sharp judgment of the pitch; but in today's painful period of blood change, he is not relying on his body and shooting skills to force a goal.
Both played at the spear point in the '4-2-3-1 formation' in the first two games, but Havertz's presence was very thin against the perennial 'manservant' Japan, and Muller was even worse against Spain, not taking a single shot on goal, and he didn't even manage to get a touch of the ball in Spain's penalty area.
This can't be blamed entirely on the players, as Germany were too worried about the back line to gamble and let the midfielders make tentative passes, and the others didn't pull back to create space for them. It was only when Sane came on that they looked capable of causing problems for the Spanish backline.
