Soccer World Cup: Germany meets Spain and Japan in the preliminary round

Before delivering a speech, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, said: “No one cares about the speeches, people want to see the lots.” To save the honor of the head of state, it must be said that he was really brief. Such an emir obviously knows when it’s worth staying silent, with a fine sense of dramaturgy he let the sentence of the evening resonate a little. The sentence came from the previous speaker Gianni Infantino, the head of state of the Emirate of Fifa, but this sentence suffered a little from the fact that Infantino, with a not so fine sense of dramaturgy, had betrayed it the day before at the Fifa Congress. The sentence was: The tournament in Qatar will be “the best World Cup ever”. The wise emir of the World Football Association had already factored in future tournaments.

Such a World Cup draw is usually a sacred act. The football world looks spellbound into the magnificently decorated festival halls, the flags of the qualified nations hang confidently above the heads of prominent figures, and on the edge of the red carpets, people whisper about evening dresses, pocket handkerchiefs and retired football heroes who have held up quite well or have gotten really fat. The evening at the Exhibition and Convention Center in Doha/Qatar tried hard to be one, but given all the circumstances it ended up being a muffled evening. The war in Ukraine, the human rights situation in the highly disputed host country, the way Qatar came to this tournament twelve years ago – all of this always had to be considered, especially in the presence of an official like Infantino, who, in his welcoming speech, called for world peace and then said that we are now getting “to the serious things” – and by that, of course, meant the drawing of lots.

Luckily Didier Deschamps, coach of reigning world champions France, walked onto the stage and brought the gold trophy with him. So there it was, the trophy, within reach of the fellow coaches, drawing attention to the sport.

How gladly one would have seen how happy Louis van Gaal was!

A little more than 2000 people sat in the hall and watched ensigns like Lothar Matthäus, Bora Milutinovic or Jay Jay Okocha on their hands, but two people were very much missed in this hall. How blissfully happy would Louis van Gaal have looked when he found out that his prophecy (“we’ll join the Qatar group, luck will always be on my side”) had come true? And how shocked and happy Jogi Löw would have been given the fact that the German national team was going to the Spaniards his favorite Spaniards, and by Lothar Matthäus? Hansi Flick, Löw’s former assistant and current successor, went to great lengths to look neutral. He is a self-confident national coach, but Spain as the head of the group: One would have spontaneously thought of friendlier alternatives.

A myth that may have originated in the Neolithic says that the Germans were always pursued by outrageous luck, which was no longer true in the end, but is also a bit irrelevant. After all, the Germans impressively demonstrated at the last World Cup that you can lose two games and be eliminated even in a more relaxed group with Mexico, Sweden and South Korea. Spain, Japan and the winner of the playoff duel Costa Rica/New Zealand: This German group constellation can now be debated lively, from “quite difficult” to “it’s fine” all judgments should be approved.

First impression: Spain is well on the way to becoming the Spain that Jogi Löw always shuddered at. However, Flick’s well-groomed, dominant style of play shouldn’t be all that wrong; He finds teams that counter sharply much more uncomfortable. On the other hand, the Japanese are likely to be a more complicated opponent than the first reflex suggests. Already this Saturday, the TV cameras at the Bundesliga game in Bielefeld should be focused on the Stuttgart captain Wataru Endo, who can think of a few diplomatic sentences until then.

There isn’t a single outsider in the Brazil group

“An exciting group with interesting tasks,” Hansi Flick later summed up and called Spain “the top favorite for the title”. He would have to “talk to Lothar again,” he joked, but for reasons of clarity he should then Dobbfavoriddn on the Diddl to speak. However, the Realo Flick is not one of those people who now create comparative rankings. If he did, he might have decided it could have been worse. For example, Group G (Brazil, Switzerland, Serbia, Cameroon) impresses with the fact that it does not contain a single outsider. In an unobserved moment, however, Flick will perhaps take a look at the so-called tournament tree and realize that Croatia or Belgium could threaten in the round of 16 and in the quarter-finals, under certain circumstances, Brazil. Louder Dobbfavoriddn.

Flick will now be able to push ahead with his plans, he now also knows that his team will take part in the tournament on November 23rd. With this relatively early start, it will hardly be enough for a longer training camp, the German delegation will probably arrive early for the World Cup and play a friendly somewhere in the Arab world – but not against the Japanese, which was originally such an idea. Because: See under group E.

Qatar is the first host country that is only as big as northern Hesse, has been mocked since the World Cup was awarded, a comparison that northern Hesse has so far sat out with considerable nonchalance. Nevertheless, DFB quartermaster Oliver Bierhoff will now check venues and distances and, together with Hansi Flick, will soon decide on a tournament quarters. The DFB scouts also have a lot of work ahead of them, they will be in Costa Rica until the final playoff decision and have to study New Zealand. With Costa Rica as a group opponent, the DFB-Elf would have had good experiences. The opponent analysis before the 4:2 in the opening game of the 2006 World Cup fell into the department of the then assistant Jogi Löw. You could ask him when he has recovered from his happy Spain shock.

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