DAccording to the Technical Study Group (TSG) of the world association FIFA, the preliminary round of the German national soccer team is also due to the poor exploitation of chances. The team of national coach Hansi Flick made by far the most shot attempts of all teams in the World Cup group phase.
“They probably didn’t use their opportunities well enough,” said former national coach and TSG member Jürgen Klinsmann on Sunday in Qatar: “We in Germany are discussing whether a real nine, like Miroslav Klose used to be, is the more efficient solution would have been.” There is a lack of real goalscorers who also use the chances.
The DFB team made a total of 67 attempts in three games, teams with a lower number of degrees such as Australia and Poland (20 each) made it into the round of 16. “They were often more efficient. They used their counterattacks,” said Arsene Wenger, FIFA’s director of global football promotion.
Klinsmann against larger squads
Klinsmann, meanwhile, was also critical of enlarged squads of 26 players at World Cups. “I’m not a fan of it, I’d rather see 23 players,” said the 1990 world champion: “It’s no use if you suddenly have 26 players available. They can’t all play and you have to keep a large group happy.”
Meanwhile, longtime Arsenal coach Arsène Wenger, as head of the commission, spoke out in favor of maintaining five substitutions even at World Cups. Most recently, the temporary expansion from three to five changes during the Corona period was permanently incorporated into the rules.
“We’re not going back to three. Nobody wants that,” said the Alsatian. “There was a request to be allowed to change more than three times.” That will probably not happen, but the time frame of 30 seconds per change may have to be extended: “We now have the longer stoppage times for that.”
Wenger also likes the expansion of the starting field to 48 teams at the 2026 World Cup. “We still have to find 16 more good teams,” said the 73-year-old. “But that still only represents 22 percent of the world. There will be more incentives to develop football within a country. There are deficits in training in many countries around the world. I’m convinced that if countries create more chances, football will develop better.”
Wenger did not want to judge in which format one should play in four years. “It has not yet been decided whether we will play with twelve groups of four teams or 16 groups of three. We can also organize two preliminary rounds of 24 in each other. But that is not for me to decide.”
