Didn't see either game but I wouldn't judge him based on the friendly against England, players rarely impress in friendlies unless they're desperate to stake a claim for a squad place. Ozil is a different style of player to Reus so it's hard to compare really, Muller I wouldn't say is better, great player though. Will be interesting to see, I presume they'll have a warm up game closer to the world cup(?) so that'll give an indication as to what their team will be. I can see a front 4 of: Gotze/ Muller, Ozil, Reus Gomez
... Reus is brilliant for dortmund and last year was superb with Gotze but this year when I have seen him in the big games and for Germany he has been a let down. I think in Germany he's still viewed as an outside bet for starting games and will probably be superb as an impact sub.
So the pots are; Pot 1 Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Belgium, Uruguay and Switzerland Pot 2 Italy, Netherlands, England, Bosnia, Russia, France, Portugal, Croatia and Greece It will be a stipulation that the ninth European team goes in either Brazil, Argentina, Colombia or Uruguay's group. Pot 3 Chile, Ecuador (probably not with Brazil, Argentina, Colombia or Uruguay) and the five African teams Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria and Algeria Pot 4 Costa Rica, USA, Honduras, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Iran (Pot 4) Worst Case Scenario Spain/Germany England Chile USA or Brazil/Argentina Netherlands/France England USA Best Case Switzerland England Algeria Iran
I'm not judging him based on the England friendly but mentioning it as you suggested he's the best player Germany have. I think his performances in the 2 games I mentioned weaken that argument, same with comparing him to Ozil and Muller, as I think they're better attacking players. In my opnion it's a case of Muller and Ozil, plus one other out of Schurrle, Gotze, Reus and Draxler. Low likes what Schurrle brings to the team and it wasn't long ago he scored a hattrick for Germany so I'd be surprised if he's not competing for a starting place. Up front I hope Klose gets the nod again, he's certainly in with a chance and has got to be one of the best tournament players there's been. I'm surprised no one's ever tried Muller upfront though, I think he'd make a great striker.
Best player Germany have at the moment? Lahm. Also part of one of the best football related profile names I've seen: Hutton Dressed As Lahm.
Schurrle has looked pretty poor whenever I've seen him for Chelsea so that may cost him a starting spot unless his form picks up but he is a great asset to the German team with his goals like you mentioned. Draxler's probably a bit too young to be considered a starter I think. Klose has probably been the best striker I've seen during tournaments, definitely someone you can call a "a big game player".
I think Low still values a direct and pacy player like Schurrle and so long as he's getting fairly regular games with Chelsea I don't think he'll go out of favour. With Draxler I was just saying that he's likely to be part of the squad and competing for the same position in the side if the other 2 are fit. It might be down to form or it might be down to the type of opponent they're playing but I don't expect Reus to be a regular starter at the World Cup unless something significant changes in the next 6/7 months.
Schurrle's place could be under threat at Chelsea though if Mourinho realises that Mata is indeed a superb player. Oscar and Hazard are pretty much guaranteed first team football and so it leaves Schurrle and Mata for the other AM role, which Mata would win hands down if it were any other manager than Mourinho in charge. Low could well still start him though if he feels he's more suited to the system he's looking to deploy but I'd just be very surprised if Reus isn't in the first XI in their first match at the WC, think the lad is a superb player and up there with the best wing forwards in Europe.
I don't get Mata and Cazorla getting dicked around by their managers, when they may be the two best CMs in the PL--but I can only hope it continues. Arsenal looks best with Cazorla in the middle and Ozil on the wing, and I can only hope we don't see that too much.
7-3 on aggregate actually. We're always incredibly unlucky when it comes to World Cup qualifications. This time, with most of our players being local-based, no league at home since June (it started and stopped twice throughout qualifiers), and our team going through a rebuilding phase, we still manage to win 7 games out of 8. Somehow it's not enough in FIFA's nonsensical African qualifying system. After going 6 wins for 6 before playoff, we get paired with Africa's #1 at the moment, Ghana, whose top strengths are direct play, pace, fitness and efficiency up front. Our top weakness? Defence ! Worst possible pairing. Our defence is what killed us in the first leg. But again, a bit of bad luck played its part in our net allowing THAT many goals (1 OG, 2 off the post, 1 doubtful penalty, 2 from set pieces). Still, we play our hearts out in a superb 2nd leg in Cairo: 60% posession, with Ghana soon shifting from early attempts to control the game to using incredible time-wasting tactics (while ref turns a blind eye) finally falling back to a match-long 10-man defence. 8 shots on target for Egypt to 1 from Ghana, yet they score in the last minute from 1 of just 3 chances they could manage and it ends 2-1. But that's how efficient they are. In the end, 7 WCQ wins out of 8 for Egypt but not going to Brazil. Mexico's record in CONMEBOL is 2-5-3 (2 games won out of 10 !) and they just needed to hop over New Zealand over 2 legs to qualify.
What I don't get is why they have the CONMEBOL/AFC and CONCACAF/CAF play-offs - in the case of Uruguay/Jordan, Jordan got humped 5-0 at home but still had to travel to Montevideo for the most academic second leg in world football history (even if it does encourage jokes about how it's not the first time Jordan's been pounded by eleven men...), but most importantly the logistics of both teams travelling to the other side of the world a couple of times in a week are ridiculous. Indeed, the logistics are as ridiculous as some of the matches in the Asian group (Japan and Australia in the same group as Iraq and Jordan, South Korea in the same group as Lebanon) Personally, I think the play-off system would be fairer if every single team was put into the same pot. Yes, that could lead to ridiculous matches like Iceland vs New Zealand, but on the other hand it could also mean two minnows (Jordan, Burkina Faso) would be drawn against each other so one would have a real chance of qualifying, whilst we might also have seen Portugal vs Uruguay so the World Cup would be guaranteed to be missing one of the most obnoxious players in world football.
