Will the ghosts of failed tournaments past come back to haunt the current world champion Germany at Euro 2016 ?
An impressive run to the quarter-finals in which it is the only remaining team yet to concede a goal has led to another confrontation with a nation it has yet to beat in tournament football – Italy.
Two of Europe’s most successful football nations meet in a quarter-final showdown in Bordeaux on Sunday morning, in a match that could well produce the tournament winner, given the impressive displays both have produced so far.
Opponents have scored just one goal in all the eight matches against these two nations at Euro 2016, and that was the Republic of Ireland’s 1-nil win against arguably a second string Azzuri team in the group stage. Two world-class keepers in Neuer and Buffon lead strong defences. In Italy’s case, it’s a defence built around four Juventus defenders: Buffon, Andrea Barzagli, Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini. Coach Conte has stated publicly that he wanted to instil a club spirit in the squad, not just a selection of players representing the nation.
Germany’s defence, led by the central defensive pairing of Matts Hummels and Jerome Boateng, has also proven unrelenting. Hummels says that Germany defend differently from Italy.
“Italy still defend rather deep and their defence is usually associated with the ‘Catenaccio’ style. We are defending with a very high line and try to keep the opposition far away from our goal with early counter-pressing.”
If the quality of opponents in the lead-up matches is a measure of the progress so far, then Italy has had the more difficult path, defeating both Belgium and Spain to get to the quarter-finals.
How it defeated Spain to exact revenge for the 2012 Euro finals defeat will no doubt be studied closely by Joachim Low and his German team. Italy surprised Spain by taking the game to the Spanish, getting through an awful lot of work in the middle of the park (the Italians have clocked up more mileage on the pitch than any other team at the Euros) and generating a lot of movement up front with the two forwards, Eder and Pelle.
“It’s more than a month that we’ve been working tactically, technically, mentally and we’ve been trying to surprise everybody and I think we’ve succeeded to some extent,” Italy’s coach Antonio Conte said after the Round of 16 win over Spain.
“Spain is one of the best teams in the world. They have players of an extremely high level. We now face the best side at the European Championships next Saturday. It’s going to be very hard in all aspects. We’ve got to do well to recover and prepare for Germany the best way we can. We are without Thiago Motta (suspended) and that’s a big blow, and also because De Rossi took a knock to his hip. But we know that in adversity we give that little bit more.”
Attacking midfielder Antonio Candreva, who missed the match against Spain, is still under an injury cloud. It remains to be seen whether coach Conte will keep his 3-5-2 formation against the Germans or whether he has another surprise in store.
The Germans, on the other hand, have the luxury of taking an unchanged side into the quarter-final against an opponent many regard as their biggest roadblock to winning the tournament.
Coach Low says: “With all due respect, our opposition so far was not the benchmark. We attack early and force the opponent to play it long. That will not always be possible from now on. Now a different kind of quality awaits us.”