Australians face early exit; Germans superb

Australia's chances of advancing past the group stage of the World Cup are hanging by a thread, and, in my opinion, two men take the majority of the blame.

First, the good news for Australia. Before a ball was ever kicked, Australia were never expected to beat Germany. In all groups with a strong top seed, the true battle is between the other three sides for the second qualifying spot. Australia lost to Brazil in 2006 and still went through. The tournament is not over for them.

Then the bad news. With a 4-0 loss, they are unlikely to advance courtesy of goal difference. That means 4 points probably won't suffice, and the Socceroos need to win both their remaining matches. That would require a significant lift from today's performance.

The two men who share the blame for Australia's predicament are coach Pim Verbeek and captain Lucas Neill. First to Neill. As the captain and central defender, Neill needed to recognise that the Australian's high defensive line was being torn to pieces by Podolski, Ozil and Mueller. Time and again the wingers were playing through balls along the ground straight past the Australian defenders as the German attackers sprung the off-side trap. Podolski's opener was the text book example. Thomas Mueller darted straight past the Australian defense, who raised their arms in search of the whistle instead of defending, and was left all alone to square a lovely cross to Podolski, who made no mistake. It was probably the coaches tactic, but once the whistle blows, there is a responsibility on the senior players to adapt a tactic that is clearly failing.

More importantly, Cahill's red card, which is a more serious blow to Australia's chances than defeat to Germany ever could have been, was, in my opinion, the culmination of Neill's misdirected 'leadership'. It was abundantly clear when the Australians came out on the second half that they were determined to bring a more physical approach. I would wager a pretty penny that a decent part of the half time team talk had been of the 'lets get stuck in, make your tackles count' variety, delivered by the captain.

It's a team talk that rings out across local football fields around Australia each weekend. Even at the amateur level, it never helps. Perhaps it is more common in a country where the sporting culture is still dominated by rugby and AFL - sports where that level of aggression is crucial, and where commitment to the cause is often measured in physical terms. But in football, it brings no results. At a professional level, vowing to get stuck in to the opposition and be more physical is far more likely to lead to a team losing their own composure than any improvement in their performance - as was the case today. And for that approach, Neill must take responsibility.

Neill was already lucky not to give away a penalty and concede a red card himself in the first half when replays showed him clearly dropping a cynical elbow on Sami Khedira. Rather than taking that fortune and refocusing on the game, he opened the second half by ramming his knee into Miroslav Klose's back. He received a yellow, but it was much closer to a red card than Cahill's challenge.

Moments later another Australian was seen punching Podolski in the back, and shortly after that came Cahill's tackle. Cahill was unlucky - the replay showed that he pulled his boots out of the tackle when he realised how late he was, but the referees mind had been set by then. Cahill was the scapegoat, but his red card was earned by the entire team, under the leadership of Lucas Neill.

The rest of the blame, for the performance and the difficulty of Australia's situation, lies at Pim Verbeek's feet. Verbeek simply doesn't have any confidence in his own side. He doesn't think they can play football, so he instructs them not to. The pre-match graphic showed that Verbeek had decided to play Tim Cahill as a lone striker. Cahill is a midfielder, not a striker, and the fact was that Verbeek had actually sent out a formation without a striker. It might be the first time in World Cup history that a side has opened the tournament with a formation of 4-6-0.

It was a formation designed to extract a nil-nil draw, conceding from the outset that victory was impossible. Ten minutes into the game Germany took a lead and Verbeek's plan had failed. Going into a tournament against better sides with a defensive mind set is hardly new, but Verbeek has no plan B. At 2-0 down Australia were utterly lost, with no idea where two goals were to come from. More problematically, there is no indication where the goals to beat Ghana and Serbia will come from.

Cahill will definitely miss the Ghana match, maybe also the Serbia match. Verbeek opted to bring only three strikers with him, and he doesn't think Kewell is fit, nor Kennedy good enough. Ghana, having collected three points against Serbia, know that a point against Australia will take them a long way to the knock out stages - they will hardly throw themselves forward and allow Australia to hit them with a counter attack. Australia have to chase the game now - something they have steadfastly refused to do since Verbeek became coach. It will take a remarkable turn around for them to make it out of this group.

The most disappointing thing about Australia's performance is that it could come as no surprise - the risks of the overly defensive approach were well known. I'll allow myself the self promotion to point you back to my first point on this blog. The real question for Australia, as it considers its future role in the football world is this - if you are not going to try and beat the best teams, why are you at the World Cup?

And what of Germany? It is hard to know exactly where to place Germany's performance, given that Australia appeared to be well below World Cup standard. But some things were clear. This team can move the ball with a speed and accuracy that few can hope to match. The statistics tell a story - 91.7% of German passes found their target. That's the fourth highest that any team has managed since the statistics started in 1966.

It was an attractive performance, and some of the moves, including the one that led to the opening goal, were sublime. Several of the German young guns look likely to become superstars over this World Cup. Ozil and Mueller looked like world beaters - if Germany go far in the tournament, the big clubs will come calling for those two (Mueller is already at Bayern Munich)

Lukas Podolski remains an enigma. He's been bad at club level for the last four years. Bayern eventually gave up on him in exasperation, and Cologne, one of the Bundesliga's worst clubs, don't even start him anymore. But at international level, he's unstoppable. At 25, he has 38 goals and 75 games under his belt. To put that in perspective, Bobby Charlton's 49 goals in 106 games still make him England's record goal scorer. Today he scored his 4th World Cup goal - more than he managed in the entire season in the Bundesliga - and was close to the best player on the field.

Its a little to early to call Germany the new favourites. If they dole out similar treatment to Serbia, then it might be time to start thinking about how far they can go.

People are so used to describing German teams as rigid, efficient and boring that they didn't notice that this changed years ago. I've been reading the reports of the game, and time and again the theme is surprise at Germany's beautiful football. Here are two links -

http://www.nationalpost.com/sports/world-cup/Germany+blows+Socceroos/3149445/story.html

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/world-cup-2010/remodelled-germans-spark-life-into-world-cup/story-fn4l4sfy-1225879412601

The reality is that Germany started playing fast, attacking, short passing football under Juergen Klinsmann before the 2006 World Cup, and Joachim Loew has continued this rebranding. Finally, it seems, the world has taken notice.