Second round of group games: Germany vs. Netherlands

After a disappointing start for the Dutch more than a few anticipated some changes to the line up that lost to a solid Denmark on day one.  But despite the predictions van Marwijk went ahead and kept his formation:  Van Bommel, De Jong, and Sneijder in the middle while Afellay and Robben would be responsible for their width.  Van Persie started the game off up front by showing us how accurate his aim is, his first shot after a beautiful chip through the middle hit Neuer right in the chest, deadly indeed (he did score later on but long after it really made a difference).

But for the most part the Dutch didn’t seem that dangerous.  They kept the ball well and had plenty of possession in the German half of the field but there was always a missing pass, some miscommunicated runs, or someone trying to take too much on rather than passing it off.  Robben of course comes to mind, he seems to be trying to  make up for his penalty miss in the Champions League final, or maybe just his lack of silverware in general.  He’s played for too many good teams to have never won the coveted European trophy.

In general, they seem like a bunch of athletes from different planets who all read the same wiki page on football but learned to play it by themselves.  No intuition, no fluidity, no real penetrating series of passes, but a lot of individual brilliance that would trouble an average team.  Not real effective when the worst team in your group has a FIFA rank of 10.  They kind of reminded me of England in ’06:  individually stellar but the sum of the parts is more than the whole.

Germany on the other hand were above average.  I don’t think they’ve hit full stride yet but they’re getting there.   Gomez capitalized on his chances and to be quite honest they could have been up by even more if Badstuber’s header had gone in, which brings up another point, the Dutch defense.

In my Euro preview I mentioned that how the Dutch defense held up would dictate their fate.  Mathijson and Heitinga have not impressed me and likely have not impressed anyone who has watched one of the Dutch games.  Their marking is intermittent and their positioning is out of sync with the fullbacks.  But to be fair, I don’t think it all their fault.  I also said that Van Bommel and De Jong might be weak links and they have proved to be so.  In the Germany game you could see ridiculous amounts of space around the German midfielders, players who are going to make you pay if you give them time.  The Dutch were waiting for the players to get the ball and then collapsed on them rather than preventing the pass in the first place, or at least preventing them from turning without hesitation.  In the end they looked old, tired, and defeated before the game even started.