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Originally Posted by demonrail666
I see Germany as Europe's greatest challenge to Spain's current dominance and given that players like Xavi are coming to the end of their career and the relative youth of players like Kroos, Reus and Ozil, I think the next World Cup could see them finally start to eclipse Spain. I'm intrigued to see how Argentina are doing post Maradona's spell as coach. On paper they're awesome: Aguero, Tevez, Messi but they always seem in the shadow of Brazil - who I'm convinced will choke under the pressure of hosting the tournament. I really think this World Cup will be the most fascinating in years. I'm getting in early and predicting a Germany win, even though I'd love it to be Argentina.
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I was convinced for that to be the case after the 2010 World Cup, where a young German team thrashed several countries, but now I'm not so sure any more.
A good attack doesn't win you tournaments, it's not conceding goals that wins you tournaments. Spain didn't concede any goals in the knock-out phases of 2008, 2010, 2012. Italy only conceded 2 in the whole tournament in 2006. At the same time Germany, as impressive as some of their wins have been, were still* conceding way too many goals during the last Euros. If that doesn't improve soon (haven't seen their game tonight but they conceded 4 in a draw with Sweden) then it's going to be the same story in 2014 against teams like Italy or Spain I think.
*even though a lot of those players had made a lot of individual progression in the 2 years between