Group D Preview: Germany and Serbia
By Rhys Turrell
Germany
Qualified: Winners of European Qualification Group 4
Best World Cup finish: Winners: 1954, 1974 (as West Germany), 1990.
FIFA Ranking: 6
Odds for 2010: 14/1
Germany cruised into their 15th consecutive World Cup finals with an unbeaten qualification campaign that was clinched with an impressive one-nil victory over Russia in Moscow.
Dropping just two points in the whole campaign, the Germans had the two highest scorers in their group with Miroslav Klose’s seven goals just edging him ahead of frontline partner Lukas Podolski who notched six.
So the Germans, perhaps inspired by Bayern Munich’s impressive run to the Champions League final, marched into South Africa with a spring in their step, confident of at least a semi-final finish.
However, their optimism was surely rocked with the news that Captain Michael Ballack will miss the tournament courtesy of an injury picked up in the FA Cup final thanks to a tackle from Ghana midfielder Kevin-Prince Boatang – suffice to say it didn’t take long for the conspiracy theorists to clear their throats.
With the inspirational former-Chelsea star Ballack robbed of a chance to appear in a third World Cup finals, the captaincy was passed to Bayern fullback Phillip Lahm, whose quality is obvious to all not least by the fact that he was named in the All-star team at the 2006 World Cup.
The question for the Germans is who will step up and fill that void left by the absence of Ballack, and it looks like coach Joachim Loew will be looking to Werder Bremen youngster Mesut Ozil to step-up and prove his worth on the highest stage of all.
Ozil, who turned down the opportunity to represent Turkey for a shot with the three times winners, began his career with Schalke before being snapped up for about €4million by Bremen. He quickly became a key figure in the German youth teams and was a pivotal part of the team that dismantled England in their 4-0 win at the 2009 European under-21 championships.
With ten caps to his name so far, and just one goal, his team mates will be looking to him for some creative inspiration, although the fact that Germany are relying on such a precocious and relatively unproven talent is surely a concern for them.
So who is going to score the goals required to get them through to the knock-out stages?
On paper, the Germans have a strong assortment of forwards, although if you look a little further there is defiantly cause for concern.
The attack is likely to be spearheaded by Podolski and Klose, and despite their respectable goal returns in qualification, their domestic form throughout the last season has been poor, with the former scoring just twice since he moved back to FC Koln, and the latter – who needs just six goals to equal the all-time record of World Cup finals goals – notching just six times for Bayern Munich all season.
The back-up to these two, the €30million man Mario Gomez managed just ten goals for the European Cup finalists last season following his high profile move from Stuttgart.
As we all know, international football is different to club football, but if the leading German forwards continue with their poor domestic form, then the chance of a major upset occurring in this group will increase massively.
The responsibility for keeping the ball out of the net will be led by new captain Lahm, who will most probably line-up in a back four including new Manchester City signing Jerome Boatang – the brother of Kevin-Prince, who was involved in the injury to Ballack – and Per Mertesacker who was a regular at the 2006 tournament.
Behind the defence, the gloves will be given to Schalke goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, who has just five caps to his name. The alternative, Werder Bremen’s Tim Wiese also has a low amount of caps – just two – but is four years older than his rival.
This group looks like being one that the Germans should progress from, but is littered with banana skins in every game, and certainly will be harder to navigate than other groups such as those involving England and Spain.
In terms of the latter stages of the tournament, well that will be covered when we come to it, but as discussed above, if Germany’s forward line performs like it has in the domestic season then they may not get to reach those knock-out stages.
Serbia
Qualified: Winners of European Qualification Group 7
Best World Cup finish: Group stages: 2006 (as Serbia and Montenegro), 4th Place: 1930, 1962 (as Yugoslavia)
FIFA Ranking: 15
Odds for 2010: 60/1
Serbia qualified for their first World Cup finals as an independent nation with an impressive campaign that saw them pip top seeds, and 2006 World Cup finalists France for the automatic qualification spot by just one point.
Despite lacking hoards of household names, the Serbian squad is made up of players at many of Europe’s top clubs, as well as several Premier League stars like Nemanja Vidic,Branislav Ivanovic and Nemad Milijas.
The captain, and holder of 81 caps spanning the three incarnations of the Serbian national team, is Inter Milan midfielder Dejan Stankovic.
A versatile player who can play in almost every position across the park, Stankovic became the captain of the newly formed Serbia following the disappointing 2006 World Cup campaign where placed in ‘the group of death’ Serbia and Montenegro returned home without a single point from their three group games.
Led by former Luton Town defender Radomir ‘Raddy’ Antic, who took over the coaching role in 2008, Serbia embarked on their successful bid to qualify for South Africa 2010 as the third seeded team in their group, behind Romania and favourites France. Yet they quickly established themselves as group leaders and didn’t surrender that throughout the campaign, which ended with a 5-0 thumping of Romania.
Their midfield linchpin and creative maestro will be captain Stankovic, however they will be looking to two prospective Premier League players to score the goals to give them a chance of doing anything spectacular at this Summer’s tournament.
Their top-scorer in qualification was Milan Jovanovic, who finished last season with Belgian champions Standard Liege, and who will be joining Liverpool later in the summer. His five goals helped to keep Serbia at the head of the group although he was aided by fellow English football new boy Nikola Zigic, whose three goals and considerable six foot, seven inches frame posed several problems for defenders. He will be joining Birmingham City for next season following an estimated £6million move from Valencia.
Although they did score a fair few goals in qualifying, their success was built on their solid defence, which features two of the best players currently in the game.
Manchester United centre-back Vidic, and Chelsea ‘utility’ defender Ivanovic have both included in the PFA team of the season, Vidic was in from 2006 to 2009 (spanning three seasons), whilst Ivanovic was included for the first time in 2010.
Another player that may be worth keeping an eye on is Manchester United reject Zoran Tosic who following a loan spell at FC Koln has managed to score five times in just 14 games for the German side and will be looking to showcase his talent to boss Sir Alex Ferguson and prove his worth as a long term successor to Ryan Giggs on United’s left side.
With the two top class defenders mentioned above in their back line, Serbia can be confident of having a strong defensive base to build from, and can be confident that these two experienced and highly regarded players will be perform to a standard that will be among the very best at the entire tournament.
Rated by the bookmakers as the second most likely side to progress from the group, Serbia look set to do better than at the 2006 tournament, and will be looking to their forwards to score enough goals to keep them active in the tournament, whether they have enough skill and finesse to see off sides in what looks likely to be a physical group remains to be seen, but they are certainly in with a good shout of progressing, albeit in second place, which may set up a last 16 tie with England.
Tags: Antic, Ballack, Germany, Ivanovic, Jovanovic, Klose, Lahm, Loew, Ozil, Podolski, Serbia, Stankovic, Vidic, World Cup, Zigic
