After just over a week, Kicker Online has finally published their in-depth analysis and revealed their player ratings for last Tuesday’s disappointing but always exciting 2-2 draw in Danzig’s shiny new PGE Arena. Let’s see how they compare with my scores…
Here’s a reprise of my player ratings:
Wiese (5) – Lahm (3), Mertesacker (5.5), Boateng (3.5), Träsch (5.5) – Rolfes (6) – Podolski (3.5), Götze (4), Kroos (3), Schürrle (2.5) – Klose (4.5). Subs: Schmelzer (4), Cacau (3.5), Müller (1.5)
And here are Kicker’s:
Wiese (4) – Lahm (2.5), Mertesacker (5), Boateng (4), Träsch (5.5) – Rolfes (5) – Podolski (4), Götze (3.5), Kroos (2.5), Schürrle (3.5) – Klose (5). Subs: Schmelzer (4), Cacau (3.5), Müller (2)
Generally the ratings Kicker gives are in line with my own, but I do think they have been way too generous to ‘keeper Tim Wiese. Or perhaps it is just me being too harsh: to be fair, while the Werder Bremen stopper was clearly complicit in both of Poland’s goals, he did make a couple of decent saves. I’m not going to change my view though – the next squad has to include either Dortmund’s Roman Wiedenfeller or Borussia Mönchengladbach’s Marc-André ter Stegen alongside Manuel Neuer and Ron-Robert Zieler.
According to Kicker’s numbers the worst German player on the field was VfL Wolfsburg’s Christian Träsch with 5.5 – matching the score I gave him – and they give Bayer 04 Leverkusen skipper Simon Rolfes, who for me was the poorest performer for the Mannschaft the night, a 5. In fact that only reason I didn’t give Träsch the lowest mark possible was due to his playing out of position; no such excuse could be offered for Rolfes however.
The best player award on the other hand was always going to go to Thomas Müller, who receives a Note 2 from Kicker for his thirty minutes on the pitch. I thought the FC Bayern winger definitely deserved a score of at least 1.5 for his part in both of Germany’s goals and the clear difference he made to the side with his energy and work-rate; there is no way that he was only half a point better than both Toni Kroos and Cacau, especially when the latter was a virtual spectator until his last-minute winner – a chance that not even Mario Gómez on a bad day would have missed.
Or maybe it is just me being too harsh again.