Four observations from Germany’s tense 2-2 draw with Mexico

Germany play their second and final US Tour game against Mexico in Philadelphia before heading back to Germany which finished a 2-2 draw. Antonio Rüdiger and Niclas Füllkrug scored for the 2014 World Cup winners while Uriel Antuna and Érick Sánchez bagged goals for El Tricolor. What were the takeaways from today’s game?

Mexico’s defensive organization stumped the Germans

El Tri made it hard for Germany to do anything at all in this pitch. Although occasionally made a breakthrough, Die Mannschaft generally found it difficult to get past Mexico’s compact shape. Bayern Munich’s Jamal Musiala, Leroy Sané, and Florian Wirtz couldn’t dribble past their markers who normally double teamed against the German attackers, while Thomas Müller could not Raumdeuter as much as he would have hoped to. The dirty play that Mexico is known for did present itself in the dying minutes of the game.

Germany’s defenders are playing exceptionally high…and they paid the price

Another notable observation from the game was that members of Germany’s backline have a knack for going into advanced positions to attack. Robin Gosens and even Niklas Süle being that far up the field is no surprise, but Antonio Rüdiger and Jonathan Tah were unusually so far out of their positions.

That came back to bite them in the 37^th minute when Mexico raced down the pitch towards Marc-André ter Stegen’s goal after Germany had a goal chalked off for offside. Süle’s bad touch aided the ghosts of 2018 in the build-up to that goal.

The Zimmermann—er—Nagelsmann Telegram: With or without a 9?

Julian Nagelsmann is known for the strikerless systems in his football teams and that was what he rolled with in the starting lineup. Four CAMs (Musiala, Wirtz, Sané, and Müller) all interchanging across the attacking positions may have caused confusion which is why the team was not able to generate a lot of chances after their first goal. Füllkrug was introduced at half-time and while he did get a goal, Germany still looked out of sorts as though they were disorganized to some extent. Nagelsmann has Germany going in the right direction, but a few more things need ironing out.

Germany was like and old man and had a bad back

The defense still has room for improvement for the Germans as they still need to rectify several issues there, with players being played out of position and subpar personnel were left to rue not getting the win today.