Young guns get their chance at qualifiers

WINDS OF CHANGE Joachim Low shows faith in new players as Germany take Spain’s cue after World Cup failure

NEWDELHI: The German nationalteam coach Joachim Low caused a stir two weeks ago when he announced that the Bayern Munich trio Mats Hummels, Thomas Muller and Jerome Boateng would no longer be part of the national team. True to his word, he dropped these stalwarts for the Euro 2020 qualifiers that started this week.

But have Germany done enough? A comparison of their squad for the Euro 2020 qualifiers and that for the 2018 World Cup shows that Germany have retained 13 players from their disastrous campaign in Russia.

Germany ended up last in their World Cup group and have, since then, even suffered the ignominy of being relegated from their group in the UEFA Nations League.

After failure in Russia, Germany decided to not change managers and keep faith with Joachim Low, who delivered them the 2014 World Cup. So if not the manager, surely it makes sense to shake up the squad. Retaining half the players from the 2018 World Cup may not be the way to go.

The last time the European qualifers were held following the World Cup in 2014, an average of 15 players from the World Cup made it to the various squads for the Euro qualifiers. Germany with 13 players beats that average, but there’s still more they could do.

They could probably take a lesson from Spain, who had a pretty poor World Cup by their standards, crashing out in the second round to the hosts Russia. But they have learnt their lesson from the tournament and tried to turn things around.

Managed by Luis Enrique, the Spanish national team has undergone a complete transformation. Of the 23 players who were in the squad for the 2018 World Cup, only eight were in the squad for this week’s qualifiers.

This transition was helped along by the retirement of star players such as Gerard Pique and Andres Iniesta from the national team.

Quite a few players have retired from international football following the World Cup, so their absence may not really represent the decisions of national managers, but it still signals how much various squads have evolved, whether by design or not.

Even if you account for players such as Diego Costa, Daniel Carvajal and Iago Aspas, who would have been part of the Spain squad if not for injuries, that would bring up the number of ex-world Cup players from 8 to 11, still fewer than the rest of the teams. You can also see some other teams repeating Spain’s past mistake of holding on to their own golden generation for a little too long.

BELGIUM STICK TO WORLD CUP STARS

Both Poland and Iceland have retained as many as 17 players from their World Cup squad for the Euro qualifiers. They may not have much of a choice in the matter. They don’t have the resources or the conveyor belt of talent to rely on that teams such as Germany or Spain do.

It’s an obvious move to keep a winning side together, and France have managed to do just that, with 17 of their 23 World Cup players present in the current squad. That number would have been 20 if three of their World Cuppers, including Ousmane Debmbele, were not ruled out with injuries.

Belgium’s golden generation is flowering at the moment, they finished 3rd in the World Cup and are serious contenders in any major tournament they play. They too have kept their squad intact.

Semi-finalists England are missing nearly half their World Cuppers, but only three of them were dropped. England are hit with injuries to five players, including to defensive pillar John Stones and Manchester United forward Jesse Lingard.

It may be a blessing in disguise, forcing manager Gareth Southgate to play some of the most exciting youngsters in world football right now, players like Jadon Sancho, Callum Hudson-odoi and Declan Rice.