“Spectators always say a good game is one that goes end to end, with lots of chances and goals. Players see it differently.
“If a game is hurtling back and forth without a pause, we have to ask ourselves what we’re actually doing. That isn’t football at the highest level. One must also try to control the game, to know when to attack and when to keep possession.
“Running from box to box is thrilling for fans but good football doesn’t work like that.”
Since Philipp Lahm wrote those words in his 2011 autobiography, he has moved from fullback to central midfield and come under the influence of Pep Guardiola, the world's leading guru of possession play. His opinion on what constitutes a good game has become even more elitist. "To play 100 passes, to have 100 touches, to give the opponent no ball and no air – that's when football really is fun," he told Süddeutsche Zeitung last month.
It was no surprise, then, that the manic conclusion to Germany's 2-2 draw with Ghana – 20 minutes of end-to-end slapstick which could have been set to the Benny Hill theme tune – left Lahm unimpressed, even if it had the Estadio Castelão in raptures.
Asked whether he was satisfied to have got the point that leaves Germany top of Group G going into the final round of games, the captain replied: "Of course we're not satisfied. We wanted to qualify today with a win, and we didn't succeed."
Lahm had not had a good game by his own standards. He gave the ball away to Sulley Muntari in the move that led to Ghana’s second goal and in the latter stages of the game the midfield he is supposed to control had all but vanished.
Rather than single himself out for blame, the captain lamented the failings of the team.
“If the game is going back and forth like that, it is because you’re not playing well tactically,” he said. “The team gets split into two parts, offensive and defensive. That’s what we don’t want. In the last quarter-hour, we weren’t really thinking. It wasn’t clever . . . We cannot do that. We had a couple of good chances to win the game, but we don’t want to be that open.”
Germany’s problems had started in the first half. “We just weren’t as clever as we usually are,” said Lahm. “We had problems with our build-up play. Against an aggressive opponent, that can lead to problems.”
Attacking Ghana play Credit must go to Ghana, whose first-half defensive play showed the cleverness Lahm wasn’t seeing in his own team. When the Germans finally did score through Mario Götze early in the second half, Ghana battered them for the next
10 minutes, scoring twice and firing in a series of unanswered shots until Klose’s poacher’s strike restored parity against the run of play.
Ghana were aggressive in more ways than one and Toni Kroos took the worst of it. Kroos was Germany's creative hub, touching the ball 125 times in a match when no other player reached 100. The five fouls he suffered were also more than any other player. The Ghanaians knew exactly what they were doing. Muntari's follow-through on Kroos just after half-time was intimidation of the old school. Kroos took the rough treatment pretty well.
“We have a lot of players who can surprise you, that’s our main strength,” said Per Mertesacker after the game, but the element of surprise had been lacking from Germany’s play. There was a plan to the build-up: ostensibly unthreatening ball circulation in midfield while the forwards drifted around seeking space between the lines, then a sudden piercing ball forward, usually from Kroos.
It’s a stealthy approach that looks to exploit lapses in defensive concentration and those fizzed passes from Kroos caught Ghana out a couple of times early on. But they soon wised up and once they were alert to that quick ball from deep, Germany started to look short of ideas.
Star-studded side Kroos needed other players to step up and provide some inspiration. It shouldn’t be in short supply; after all, this is said by many good judges to be the most talented squad Germany has
sent to a World Cup.
They boast Mario Götze, once labelled the German Messi (though he himself has said he’d rather emulate Cristiano Ronaldo). Götze has a good first touch but on here he struggled to impose himself on the game.
His best moment was the goal; not so much for the finish itself, which was slightly fortuitous, but for the crafty anticipation he showed to ghost in on the blind side of Ghana’s defence and connect with Müller’s cross. There was little else to remind you of Messi or Ronaldo.
Germany looked more dangerous when Klose was on the field, albeit in a game that had become stretched and chaotic. They produce a lot of crosses and Klose is brilliant at putting them away. But at 36 years of age, he is unlikely to start any games.
In the end the important thing was that Germany had not lost. “Nobody except maybe France has put together two great wins,” said Lahm, who plainly does not see the likes of Colombia and Costa Rica as serious contenders.
Germany must now get a result against the United States, who are managed by Jürgen Klinsmann, a former coach of Lahm with Germany and FC Bayern.
Lahm was rather scathing about Klinsmann in his autobiography, portraying him as a spouter of buzzwords who focused exclusively on fitness training and motivation and knew nothing about tactics.
“He’ll get his team pretty hot for the game,” said a journalist.
“Certainly. But we’re hot to get to the next round too,” replied Lahm
