Hoping Farke emulates the under German 21 psyche

[ABC (A Basingstoke Canary) 26]

Without doubt, once the 1st 15 mins or so were over, Germany were the superior team and deserved to win.

1) High pressing - fantastic, the English reverted to type and defended en masse giving the Germans the freedom to play around with the ball.

2) Harassing the English players, not giving them time to play their game.

3) Crisp tight passing.

4) Worked as a team - not as individuals - seamless transition from Selke to Platte was a joy to watch (even if it was the Germans)

5) The Germans didn''t kick the ball aimlessly away from their penalty area - they always had someone top pass to.

There was more to marvel at - just hope that Farke and Stefan Kuntz are cut from the same cloth - and if so, the future is looking very bright.

As a byword, I thought that Jacob was ineffectual and didn''t really enhance his reputation - fortunately!

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,557]

In Germany their current U21 is thought of that highly. The best players are current in Russia for the Confed Cup and the better younger players are being held back in the U19s so they can develop together.

Kuntz isn''t particularly we regarded and they were very critical of the teams performance against Italy when it was universally agreed he was ''out tactic-ed'' by the Italians.

There is a lot of surprise they have made it to the final, but no one is expecting much against Spain who are the stand-out team this year.

[Woodman 92]

Naturally I was disappointed we lost, but it was interesting to watch it given our new German backroom staff and we''re naturally assuming we''ll play the same way this season.

I liked the way they pressed so hard on our defence. You could see that we wanted to pass it around, but because they were given no time to do so, or didn''t have anyone going into space, we had to resort to giving the ball away or playing a long ball to Abraham or Redmond when he came on.

Murphy did ok when he came on, but wasn''t able to get forward as much as he''d have liked. When he did, I thought he was quite direct and positive. Shame for Redmond too.