Watching Germany at the World Cup can indeed be the kind of experience you’d normally associate with sitting at London Stadium watching West Ham.
Depending on who you’re sitting next to or behind of course. In this case it was me sitting in my brother’s living room, watching the game against Sweden with him and half of my nephew.
I’m saying half because he wasn’t paying much attention to the football really, choosing to focus on reading another chapter of whatever part of the Harry Potter series he’s currently battling with instead – having read them myself I know it can be very hard to put the books down with all those bloody cliffhangers at the end of every chapter!
The game had several cliffhangers of its own in store and my brother and I agreed throughout that only a win would do in terms of keeping Germany in the tournament.
A very telling sign that my brother is getting back to normal health is the way he was talking and acting during the game, in a fairly miserable, pessimistic, Eeyore-style manner, the kind of which you sometimes get at West Ham home games too.
It’s just the way my brother is, always was, will be forevermore. He moans about the neighbour’s cat taking a short-cut through his garden, he moans about the way other people drive, too fast, too slow, wrong colour of car, in short: He seems to rather enjoy finding things to moan about – and Germany’s performances at the World Cup so far have been a fountain of inspiration for him, feeding his complainy side.
Of course my brother was right with a lot of stuff he said about the game against Sweden, moaning about the Germany players’ body language, their lack of invention, their predictability, their tendency to overdo the sideways and backwards passing, the looming shame of potentially going out of the tournament at the hands of Sweden etc.
Again, I couldn’t really argue much with him as he was spot on, but the moaning was relentless (it must run in the family), he kept repeating the same phrases, but of course all of that misery was wiped out with one beautifully executed freekick in injury time. Take a bow Toni Kroos!
It was the kind of goal worthy of winning any game and knowing how tournaments have gone for Germany in the past, who knows how far Germany will go now ?
If you ask me, not much further than the quarterfinals. I just hope we won’t have to play England at any point as that would require me to stay away from the blog for a while, especially should England win…:-))
On the West Ham transfer front things have been awfully quiet, with a number of rumours, yes, but apart from Fabianski being confirmed not much else came to fruition really.
It looks though as if the weeks-long Felipe Anderson will he-won’t he saga will finally come to an end now one way or another.
Rumour is a deal has finally been agreed with West Ham paying up to 40 million Euros for him, with a 20% sell-on clause tagged onto the deal.
If true, it’s an expensive acquisition for sure, but one well worth pursuing if he indeed is the cornerstone of what Manuel Pellegrini has in mind for this club. I cannot claim to having seen a lot of games in which Anderson took part, but from what I can gather from the usual sources online he is pacy and a great team player, working hard for the cause and being more interested in setting up opportunities and goals for his teammates rather than doing it all for himself.
Of course it’s frustrating if a transfer takes ages to materialise, but once you start dealing with big, professional clubs there is bound to be a staring contest, trying to determine who loses his cool and blinks first!
It’s a game of poker really and while you don’t want to pay over the odds, sometimes there’s no way around it if you really fancy the player!
Bringing in a technically gifted and quick team player like Anderson sounds promising enough and it might actually also serve as a springboard for other quality additions following suit. As much as I like to read about the odd transfer rumour, I am still fairly old-school though about the way transfers should be negotiated and announced. I still like the behind-closed-doors approach and love transfers that jump out at you like a rabbit from a hat, basically out of nowhere, and I absolutely wouldn’t mind if that was the way in which MP, Husillos and Sullivan were dealing with transfer matters from now on.
It may not give us quite as many rumours as before to talk about, but it might just result in bringing us the players we actually need – I know where my priorities lie in that respect.
Another player potentially arriving in Stratford from Italy could be Stefano Sturaro, a versatile player from Juventus, with 25 years still at a great age with his peak years hopefully ahead of him. The chap mainly plays as a defensive midfielder (hooray!!!), but has also featured as attacking midfielder on the left or even full back on the right.
He couldn’t nail down a regular starting place at Juventus though, but even bearing that in mind he could still be a good fit for West Ham.
His main qualities appear to be maintaining possession of the ball and supporting his defenders which is the key attributes I would want from a defensive midfielder.
I’m a big believer of having a balanced squad and for that to become a reality you also need players who do the dirty or the unspectacular work that tends to go unnoticed far too often. You cannot have a team with ten Arnautovic-style players. Nor ten Lanzinis or ten Mark Nobles. You need to have a bit of everything and should we really get Felipe Anderson then having someone like Sturaro might just be another missing link for the jigsaw that MP and Husillos are currently trying to solve.
Italy seems to be a popular hunting ground for us this summer. Apparently we have been talking to Lazio at such lengths that we may also pick another player from them, Lukaku. No, that’s not our nemesis striker with the knack of scoring vital golas against West Ham, Romelu, but rather his brother Jordan whose main job is preventing goals rather than scoring them which comes as no surprise as he is another defensive minded midfielder.
Built like a brick cabin designed for housing a khazi or two, he looks like a player born to showcase his skills on pitches in England. He sounds like the perfect complimentary player to Sturaro as Lukaku is a decent dribbler and passer of the ball. Both players are rumoured to be available at reasonable (in today’s market) prices.
We need to get away from signing players with a famous name or those who used to be great at other clubs years ago.
Rather than that I hope that MP will establish what kind of players are required and then sign those guys accordingly, regardless whether they come from a league we rarely watch or have a name most fans have never heard before. In this respect I am fairly optimistic MP and Husillos can deliver.
We shall have a much changed team for next season and that alone will make the upcoming season one to look forward to with eager anticipation and excitement.
Closing out with the Concordia update, the club have announced that their squad for next season is complete now. 22 players will try to make amends and give the fans better football and more points on the board next season. The two goalkeepers remain the same, apart from that TEN new players will try to force their way into the starting XI.
It sounds like a decent mixture of experienced heads and young lads from lower divisions who will try to make the step up to Oberliga level.
There is also a young defender who has been promoted from the U23s which is nice to see and of course I will try to watch the U23s as well whenever I can.
The U23s have been promoted as well and they will now play the majority of their away games in places not far from my brother’s house, so he is bound to join me on a few occasions. As long as he doesn’t moan quite as often as when watching Germany play, he is more than welcome. Then again I won’t mind too much anyway, as long as the Cordi boys end their games in similar fashion as Toni Kroos did on Saturday night…:-))
COYI!!!