New Coach Löw Stays Loyal to Germany's Soccer Master Plan

It was probably the most perfect ten minutes of the 2006 World Cup. With a quarter-final place up for grabs, Germany ripped into Sweden from the starting whistle of their Round of 16 match and blew the Scandinavians away with power, pace and precision.

Lukas Podolski provided the finishing flourishes with two goals but it was the passion in the play from the outset which set the Swedes up for the killer blow.

Jürgen Klinsmann was in charge that day but when Germany face Sweden again on Wednesday night, it will be his assistant, the new national coach Joachim Löw, who will be charged with instilling that passion in his young charges once more.

Löw's debut as national coach in the friendly with Sweden in Gelsenkirchen has been trumpeted by some as the beginning of a new era. While this may be true in the fact that he is not Jürgen Klinsmann, Löw was an integral part of the set-up which took Germany to a credible third place in the World Cup just five weeks ago. It is unlikely that Klinsmann would have anointed his successor so gladly if he thought that Löw would rip up the plan they had formulated together and start anew.

Löw is not exactly wet-behind-the-ears either. A former coach at VfB Stuttgart and Austria Vienna before taking on his role as Klinsmann's number two, he is a coach in the same mould as his predecessor and as such, there should be little or no deviation from the master plan the two of them concocted.

Euro 2008 qualifiers loom large

However, the Sweden friendly gives Löw his first taste of what it's like to have sole control of the team. The pressure is on for the result to be a good one what with Germany's Euro 2008 qualifiers beginning on September 2. Germany will expect and Löw will have to deliver.

Germany failed to win a single match at Euro 2000 and Euro 2004 but that has not stopped Löw thinking positive for the 2008 edition in Austria and Switzerland.

"We failed in our goal to win the World Cup so we want to bring the Euro 2008 title back to Germany," said Löw, whose young team will face the Republic of Ireland in Stuttgart in the first game of a long haul towards those finals. "We can't bask in the World Cup euphoria forever but we can take confidence from the fact that we can compete with the top teams. This young team is not at the end of its development."

Even so, the coach is not expecting much from his side, many of whom have only recently returned to training after their World Cup exploits. "You have to be realistic at this stage of the season. We know full well the players are not on top form."

"For this reason, I consider this match against Sweden as merely a training exercise before the beginning of our European Championships 2008 qualification campaign."

New coach facing injury headache

Löw is already facing his first test as national coach as his selection choices have been reduced by a spate of injuries, denying him the opportunity to face Sweden with a full strength team.

Captain Michael Ballack is sidelined with a hip injury sustained in Chelsea's 2-1 Community Shield defeat to Liverpool on Sunday while Borussia Dortmund duo Christoph Metzelder and Sebastian Kehl will also miss out with knee injuries. Per Mertesacker and Robert Huth are two other regulars unavailable for the friendly in Gelsenkirchen.

Löw has called up Hertha Berlin's German under-21 defender Malik Fathi and MSV Mainz defender Manuel Friedrich to plug the gap in the back four.

But the main concern is Ballack's fitness after it was revealed that the injury he sustained in Cardiff at the weekend was a recurring problem. Löw now just hopes his skipper is back fit in time for the Ireland match, declaring: "We hope Ballack is back as soon as possible and perhaps he can play again at the weekend."

World Cup strikers get the nod

But he can call upon the strike partnership of Lukas Podolski and World Cup golden boot winner Miroslav Klose for the Sweden match. "Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski will start against Sweden," Löw said at a press conference on Sunday. "It was a partnership that worked well at the World Cup."

Klose scored five goals at the World Cup while the 21-year-old Podolski scored three times.

Sweden should need no firing up for the match with their 2-0 defeat in the World Cup still fresh in their memory. Like Germany they are also warming up for the Euro 2008 qualifiers with their first match against Latvia on September 2.