World Cup “final-four”; The last hurdles are always the toughest

Manuel Neuer’s three clean-sheets in five matches for Germany has many pegging him as the keeper of the tournament. Despite Muller’s four goals, Neuer has been immense

"Team: Germany (Die Mannschaft) World Cup pedigree: 7-time finalist (’54, ’66, ’74, ’82, ’86, ’90, ’02), 3-time winner (’54, ’74, ’90) How they got to the semifinals: winners of Group G; defeating Algeria and France in the knockout stage Preferred formaton: 4-3-3 (Neuer; Howedes, Hummels, Mertesacker, Boateng; Schweinsteiger, Lahm, Kroos; Ozil, Muller, Gotze) Key Players this tournament: Manuel Neuer, Mats Hummels, Thomas Muller, Toni Kroos Key Absences for the semifinals and finals: None"

What do they need to do to win it all?

There are few more blissfully industrious than the Germans – it’s been that way for decades, and it continues to be so this summer.  They have switched to a more possession-based style of play, which brings to the fore their cohesiveness and understanding at club level (seven of the starting XI play for Bayern Munich) and it has served them well.  They still remain the biggest team in the tournament, and their dominance on set-pieces has served them well yet again on both sides of the ball.  While they may be a better team when they play a counter attacking style, this is still a very good side who have arguably the most dangerous XI out of the remaining four teams.  Sticking to what you are good at usually yields positive results, and Germany can literally ride set pieces all the way to lifting their long-awaited fourth World Cup trophy if they wanted to.

What is their biggest hurdle?

While switching to a possession-based style of play has worked for them (they’re in the semi-finals), they have struggled to kill teams off apart from their mauling of Portugal in their group stage opener.  More often than not, Germany labors in possession and their usual ability to be quick and incisive when on the ball has been slowly stripped from them.  With the amount of creative players they have in their side, they should have no issues creating chance after chance after chance, but the problem is, apart from Thomas Muller and Miroslav Klose, they do not have many finishers.  Joachim Low’s tinkering in multiple areas on the pitch and on the tactics board has yet to bite them in the butt, but there is still time for that if he does not gather his senses.