Germany Is Loaded With Promise

By ROB HUGHES

Published: June 3, 2012

LONDON — A wise man never bets against Germany at the major tournaments, and the team that Joachim Löw has been painstakingly building over six years is now expected to be ready for the European Championship.

The belief is that its young players — like Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira of the Spanish champion Real Madrid — are much more worldly than they were when they blossomed at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

And the experienced guys — like Philipp Lahm, Lukas Podolski and that inveterate striker of goals, Miroslav Klose — are tired of finishing second or third, and want a title to top off their careers.

Germany’s problem in Löw’s time has been, in a word, Spain.

It was the Spanish who beat the Mannschaft in the 2008 Euro final, and the Spanish who eliminated Germany in the World Cup semifinal two years later.

It took the world’s best to expunge a Germany that was growing. But while Carles Puyol and David Villa, both key elements of the Spanish team, are missing the tournament this year because of injury, the Germans should only be getting stronger.

Germany has already shown its meticulous approach to planning for this Euro. While England and Italy have scheduled respectful visits to the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz when they arrive in Poland, Germany sent a delegation in advance.

That way, they separate the emotion from the duty of winning.

That way, Podolski and Klose, both Polish by birth but German by upbringing and sporting preference, pay their respects and can now concentrate on the tournament.

And while the rising wave of young German talent has offered challengers to both Podolski and Klose, it will be a major surprise if Löw has selected these two proven game-winners just for the ride. Podolski, who intuitively raises his game while wearing the national jersey, looks for the runs that Klose unerringly makes into the goalmouth.

And Klose, who will turn 34 during the tournament, remains a lean, alert, predatory player, even if Bayern Munich let him go to Lazio last summer.

Germany has called upon Klose to play 117 times, and he has answered with 63 goals, leaving him just a handful of strikes behind the greatest German scorer of all time, the incredible Gerd Müller.

Klose’s mind, one of his biggest assets, is set on a winners’ medal. And preying on the mind of Löw has to be that Mario Gómez, Klose’s replacement at Bayern, did the business he was asked to almost every time — until the Champions League final.

Although Munich enjoyed overwhelming possession against Chelsea in that game, Gómez did what Klose simply does not do: He blew his chances on the big stage.

Many, many years ago, I remember asking Helmut Schön, the trainer of West Germany’s world and European champions in the 1970s, about coaches who persevere with aging players. “One does not cling to great players,” Schön responded. “They cling to you.” In other words, even during a rebuilding phase, and even with the wealth of young talent, of multiple ethnicities, that is pushing through in Germany, the coach will select the proven game winners when he can.

Health will determine the selection. This past season in Rome, Klose has had layoffs due to injury, but he has worked himself back toward peak fitness for this event, which combines his Polish heritage with his final desire as an athlete.

“Leaving Bayern Munich,” he said recently, “was like leaving my family. At Lazio, I found another family, and now I want to win a title with the national team — and my feeling is that we can do it.”

Germany doesn’t have an easy group in Ukraine. It opens in Kharkiv against Portugal, and then travels to Lviv to meet its neighbors, the gifted Dutch. Finally, Germany has a contest, again in Lviv, against a Danish side that by then might have nothing to lose.

“I am not even thinking about the possibility of failure,” said Löw, who actually began the transition of the German squad when he was the assistant coach to Jürgen Klinsmann at the 2006 World Cup. “The team,” he added, “has made a lot of progress.

“That doesn’t mean that we will win the title. We don’t underestimate anyone. We should not think that the Netherlands are inferior, with players such as Robin van Persie, Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben.

“Portugal has Real Madrid stars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Pepe. Spain has world-class stars like Xavi and Andrés Iniesta. It would be foolish to think they have less quality than Germany.”

Foolish, perhaps. But Munich beat Real Madrid over two legs in the Champions League, and Munich is the backbone of Löw’s team. Borussia Dortmund, which plays a much more direct and a quicker style than Bayern, beat the Muncheners comprehensively in the Bundesliga and the German Cup.

And if the senior Bayern players are not up for the tournament, the younger elements of Dortmund — the quick-witted, quick-footed play maker Mario Götze, the reliable defender Mats Hummels and the emerging midfielder Ilkay Guendogan — will hungrily step into their shoes.

Having coached them all at various ages with Germany’s different national teams, Löw now has them training together in one camp before yet another big tournament. He will know which, if any, of the Bayern players have any kind of a hangover from losing the Champions League final, and he will know exactly why the young guns of Dortmund gave Munich such a thrashing in the German Cup.

Competition for places makes Germany stronger. How strong, we are about to discover.

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