World Cup 2010 - How Germany beat England
A German PhD student has revealed the secrets that helped Germany humiliate England 4-1 at the World Cup.
Stephan Nopp was the head of a group of 55 students at the German Sports University in Cologne, who spent nearly 1,000 hours analysing the English team before handing a dossier to German coach Joachim Loew.
Now he has told the Daily Telegraph what exactly their research found and how the German team exploited their findings during their victory in Bloemfontein.
"The way England played against Germany was like we expected," Nopp told the paper.
"The German coaching staff knew what would happen when England got the ball - we got it right. We began analysing all 31 teams after they qualified for the World Cup so, for England, we started nearly one year before the game.
"One of the things we look for is how a team starts their attacks. For England, the ball went very often through the centre of midfield to Lampard, Barry or Gerrard, who had moved in from the left. Gerrard had a lot of action in the centre although he should be the left midfielder.
"This was very, very significant for us as we could predict what would happen when England had the ball. From this, we could also predict how Wayne Rooney would attack a defender so we could find a way to stop him.”
The team of students also noted that England's previous opponents had success with the long ball against them, so the Germans decided to change their usual short-passing tactics especially for the match.
"In the group matches, less than 10 per cent of Germany’s passes were what we would call long or uncontrolled. Against Australia, it was just two per cent. However, we upped that ratio to 30 per cent against England."
Such was the role that the students played in Germany's success that the team's assistant manager Oliver Bierhoff came out with a public thank you to them after their victory over England.
Since the World Cup has finished the students have continued their research and have noted that teams that play a fluid system - usually 4-2-3-1 - like the Germans, Spain and Holland, are the sides that are having the most success.
"It seems also that the top players will change their position," Nopp said.
"Some years ago you could find these players mostly as centre forward, but if you look at Arjen Robben, David Villa and Thomas Muller the trend is that the player will start from the wing. They are important for assists and for goals.
"Another important aspect was the counter attacks. Switching from defence to offence is getting more and more important.
"The teams who were variable and adaptable were the best. The teams who played a fixed 4-4-2 system, like England, had disappointing tournaments.”
Comment 172 - 191 of 191
everybody, stop talking about small team like england .in 1966 or 1956 they won a cup where just about 10 teams from europe and south america took part and the funny thing,they call it world cup.so wot hapen 2 england after that not even a single final for over 80 years when big teams like germany and brasil are playing big finals every 8years.so please stop talkin about little england
If anybody wonders why these students could not analyse the Spanish team so that Germany could beat them, I will let you in a secret: Spain was playing within a portable quantum pocket, where the normal physic laws did not apply: that is why they did not have problems with the Jabulani ball. They should be disqualified, the cheeky busters ;-)))
I read the article again, and the second time seems more stupid than the first one. Predict how Rooney will play? Yes, I can predict it....terrible!. In all the cup he did nothing, so against Germany he continued like that. You can predict a bad player, but imagine trying to predict Pele, Maradona, Zidane, Forlan???. Phd in football?, go home!
"the ball went very often through the centre of midfield to Lampard, Barry or Gerrard ... From this, we could also predict how Wayne Rooney would attack a defender"
they needed 1000 hours to realize this?
well simple really england were hopless over paid fools
They didn't just do the research, they put their stomach into the game and won it fair and square. If England ever get round to doing either.....
tbh, i think they made it up. the disallowed goal rlly mentally affected thier preformance. the article dint show what they thought they would play as, anyway, if they went out 2all (i think it was 1-2 at half) at 2nd half they would have betta chances
Typical hun's!
Germany are cheaters and I supposed that they had did that to defeat other teams in the past thew world cups.
Germany are cheaters.Germany are pointless
Even with the stats, england would have lost! and this is old news anyway, some kid from uni told me this a month ago.
Hung Rooney &co upside down and beat their shi7s out.
its high time people accept that there is no talent in the england camp. capello can only work with whats available....talentless players
no difference to what Gary Linekar, Alan Shearer and co were saying after the match. Maybe they should be given PHD's
I think its fair to say that Germany played better football to beat England .and after watching England play last night it was obvious to see why Germany beat them .but then England can only get better with more practise.i hear they have a friendly lined up with iceland next month and if they beat them they will go on to play against Tescos and Sainsburys .
This is what happened Capello is an old manager yes he won things in his day but he has not until now got some modern tactics. Ferguson at ManU only does well when he has a good second in command these days to bounce tactics with. When Ferguson lost McLaren he had some bad moments until he got a good assistant again. Who does Capello have Pearce; well Pearce is a decent man and England through and through but is he good enough to be at Capello's ear and Beckham acting as a manager on the sideline did not help either; Perce and Beckham are not smart enough to be at that level. Capello needs the assitant at Chelsea Ray Wilikins as Wilkins has some grey cells.
i suppose these students also predicted that the ref and linesman would not allow a perfectly good goal that would have changed the result had englang gone in level at half time?.
Whats soo annoying about reading this arcticle is that it is true, and England were not playing Strategicly!!
Look at how they changed their game plan to beat England... what did we do?? I'm annoyed at the level of commitment and lengths they went through to beat us, what did we do??? Jack all!! - I 'm gonna eat!
"Open your eyes you narrow minded little Scotlander." - with an name like Olphert I wouldn't be saying too much.
The comments here prove the points in the article perfectly. England fans, like their team are predictable. We waffle on about indeterminate conceptions like 'passion' and prattle on about systems as if merely saying '442' or '433' has an effect. The Germans win things because they are happy to look at meaningful data. Spain won this year not just because they had a group of exceptionally talented players, but because they new that tactics, technique and teamwork were far more important than worrying about 'passion' or whether Gerrard should be playing as a second striker, on the left or in the middle. If England fans or the English press ran the Spanish team they would not have won - why not? Because they would have said "Fabregas is better than Alonso or Busquets so we have to play him". The article mentions Gerrard playing in the middle, again, this proves why England lose, because whether or not you think he should be playing elsewhere, his job was to play on the left, a job he 100% failed at. It is a team game and players need to put their egos aside and play how they are told.
So, they didnt analyse spain?
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