Germany could be dark horses despite gloom

Despite topping their World Cup qualification group there seems to be a general gloom around the German national side with the World Cup looming.

The fact that they have underperformed by their very high standards in recent years has led to a lack of belief.

Struggling

Another reason for the gloom is the performances of two of their key attacking players in the Bundesliga. Striker Miroslav Klose has scored just two Bundesliga goals this season in 22 appearances.

He has started just eleven of those games having struggled to oust Mario Gomez and Ivica Olic from the team.

Klose’s strike-partner of the past Lukas Podolski has endured a terrible season after returning to Koln from Bayern Munich. The 24 year-old has also scored just two goals in 25 appearances in the Bundesliga this season. German head coach Joachim Loew has assured Podolski that he will be in the squad that travels to South Africa come June but the striker needs to find his form.

Youngsters

There is cause for optimism for the German national side though. A reason for optimism is the recent rise of a new generation of talented youngsters. For years German football has had to rely on experienced reliable players and there has been a slight lack of youngsters coming through.

The last few years has seen the emergence of the likes of Mesut Ozil, Toni Kroos, Marko Marin and Thomas Muller. These youngsters are exciting attacking players who are the future of the countries national team.

This World Cup may have came too soon for some of them but in World Cup’s there is always one young player that stands out and that young player could come from Die Mannschaft. Add those to the new up and coming defensive talents of Jerome Boateng and Serdar Tasci and Germany have a promising future ahead of them.

Goalkeepers

Germany are spoilt for choice in the goalkeeping department. Bayern Leverkusen keeper Rene Adler and Schalke stopper Manuel Neuer are both highly-rated and have attracted interest from bigger clubs throughout Europe.

Neuer has in fact been linked with a move to Manchester United and Bayern Munich but has revealed that if Schalke secure Champions League football it will help persuade him to stay in Gelsenkirchen. He is only second choice for Germany with Adler being Loew’s current first choice number one.

Adler is also highly-rated and like Neuer has also been linked with Manchester United. Adler has made some recent gaffes and there are now question marks over whether Neuer should be Germany’s number one.

Their third choice keeper is the reliable Werder Bremen stopper Tim Wiese. Goalkeeper won’t be an area of the pitch that Joachim Loew will have to worry about. Despite criticism of Adler all three keepers are steady and reliable enough.

Mix

Germany have a mixture of youth and experience. Michael Ballack, Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger have already played at World Cup’s and captain Ballack will reach the century of caps for his nation during the World Cup.

Then there is the aforementioned Klose and Podolski, who seem to perform better in the national side than they do at club level. At just 24 years old Podolski has won 70 caps and scored 37 goals. Klose is approaching his century of appearances and has lots of success at tournaments with Germany. Klose has scored 48 goals for Germany, only Gerd Muller has scored more goals for his country with 68.

Those experienced players mixed with the younger players mentioned above and it seems that Joachim Loew has a good blend to his squad.

Tournament

Traditionally Germany are a good tournament side. They are very good in knockout football and have a history of being hard to beat. Even the much derided 2002 Germany squad made the World Cup final despite expectations being low at the start of the tournament.

They finished third on home soil in 2006 and again it was above expectation because of the lack of belief in their squad. The last tournament the Germans took part in was Euro 2008 and lost the final to Spain 1-0.

These results show that the German national team is on the up, despite negative feeling around the camp. Germany are very much my dark horses for World Cup 2010 and it really wouldn’t surprise me if Michael Ballack lifted the trophy in July.