Hansi Flick
Germany take on Oman in their lone pre-tournament friendly ahead of the 2022 Men’s World Cup, in a game that few people seem to have access to watch. We’ll do our best to follow along with the action on Twitter, unless for unrelated reasons that also goes under.
22’ — Germany win the ball back and Kai Havertz is in dangerous position to pull the strings. He tries a slightly audacious switch that falls short of the mark. The Germans are lacking crispness so far.
20’ — A ball over the top from Oman evades Matthias Ginter in central defense and the home side are through — but extraordinarily wasteful with their chance.
1’ — Kickoff! We’re underway! Or are we? The schedule says so! Someone who has a stream can tell us how these away jerseys look for the Germans. All eyes will be on 17-year-old Youssoufa Moukoko, who leads the line today.
One hour until kickoff: We have lineups! Hansi Flick fields a 4-2-3-1 with many regular starters benched. Looks like he’s experimenting today. If these players want to be on the main XI come next week, they’ll need a good performance here. Germany don’t need a win, they just need information.
There’s only a week left until Germany kick off their 2022 World Cup campaign with an opener against Japan. Hansi Flick has a ton of work to do — he needs to find his best XI, he needs to get his players up to speed, and he needs to finalize what the team setup will be when the actual important games roll around. Unfortunately, he only has one test game against Oman to figure some things out, which makes this game all the more important.
Most people expect the Bayern Munich contingent to dominate the German XI, and that’ll undoubtedly be the case. As their former coach, Hansi knows these guys, and they are the most talented stars Germany has right now. However, even within the Bayern setup, there are questions about Thomas Muller’s fitness, Leroy Sane’s current form, and more. Meanwhile, the rest of the team has question marks hanging over it. This game against Oman should provide valuable insight.
[Source: bavarianfootballworks.com]