So far, a high proportion of this World Cup’s games have been defensive and tedious encounters. However, last Sunday, the German’s 4-0 victory over the 10-men of Australia caught the eye of many football fans, and they are now being tipped as possible winners. On Friday, they face a Serbian team who will need to show the right response if they are to progress from Group D. A poor display against Ghana saw the White Eagles lose their opening game 1-0, which has re-ignited horrible memories of an early exit and nil pois four years ago. At least a point is needed from their game against Germany if they are to have a realistic chance of reaching the knockout round, and they will need to raise their game to achieve this.
Firstly, the confidence needs to be reinstated in the players, and the person responsible for doing this will be Radomir Antic. With five days of preparation, the highly respected coach has a tough job on his hands if he is to prevent the Germans from running rampant. After last weekend’s game, he did what he could to quickly encourage his players to forget about their opening match and look ahead. “Of course this is a big blow for us, it’s bad to start the World Cup with a defeat. But we have two more games and we must put this behind us and look forward to playing Germany and Australia.”
Perhaps the biggest concern is that the Serbian team lacked spark throughout the match, despite seeing a good amount of the ball. None of the players finished the clash with Ghana with their reputation fully intact, and, worryingly, they will most likely have even less possession against Germany. A change of tactics could be adopted – for example, a holding player like Gojko Kacar could be deployed to counter the impact of German playmaker Mesut
