Germany 2, England 1

Well Jeremy liked my USA/Sweden summary so I figured I'd give some thoughts on the extremely entertaining England/Germany friendly yesterday as well. Both teams had several of their stars out with injuries (Gerrard, Rooney, Cashley, and others for England, Ballack, Klose, Podolski, Frings, SCHWEINSTEIGER! for Germany). England -Paul Robinson - 1.0 - he's awful, the first German goal was a joke. He was out of position for the cross to begin with which caused him to panic and instead of punching the ball over the crossbar, he knocked it down right in front of his own goal for Kuranyi to tap in. He also gave a rebound chance on the one save he did make. -Nickey Shorey - 7.0 - solid player, looks like he'll be a good backup for Cashley at leftback. -John Terry - 6.0 - solid not spectacular. Was slow to react on the first goal but can't blame him since he's used to playing with keepers who don't suck. -Rio Ferdinand - 5.0 - only played 1st half and since the Germans did nothing for the first 25 minutes, he had little to do. Also shares a tiny bit of the blame on the first goal for the same reason as Terry. -Micah Richards - 8.5 - this guy is an absolute beast. In the first half, he looked completely comfortable at rightback and was England's most dangerous player going forward, setting up Lampard's goal with a great run and drawing two other freekicks in dangerous areas. In the second, he was switched to centerback and also did a nice job. He's only 19 right now, I really think you could put him at literally any position on the field and he'd become a star. One thing's for sure, he's not going to be at City for much longer. -Becks - 4.0 - he looked off, sent 2 or 3 good balls but also several uncharacteristically terrible ones. I hope he does well just so the story won't be, "look at how bad Becks sucks now, must be because of the crappy competition in America." -Joe Cole - 8.0 - adds another dimension to England's attack with his dribbling ability. Glad he is finally healthy again, he's a hell of a player. -Frank Lampard - 7.0 - scored a nice goal and in general looked way way way more comfortable playing without Gerrard. McClaren really needs to make a choice and go with one or the other of Lampard and Gerrard, they just can't play with each other. I'd go with Gerrard because he's such a good all-purpose mid but there's definitely an argument to be made that Lampard is a better fit right now with England's striking problems because he's the better goalscorer. -Michael Carrick - 3.0 - probably one of the worst games I've ever seen him play - his passing was way off and didn't do much else. He's a good player though, really should be him or Hargreaves along with Gerrard or Lampard in the center of the midfield. -Alan Smith - 2.0 - pretty worthless performance. Bad bad situation that he might be starting up top in England's must win Euro qualifiers coming up. Amazing that losing one player (Rooney) leaves England with such a striking crisis - they gotta be able to do better than Smith, though to be fair, Darren Bent and Andy Johnson were also out with injuries (though neither have done anything for England yet) and Crouch didn't start cause he is suspended for England's next qualifier. -Michael Owen - 4.0 - looked really rusty, blew a couple good opportunities (including an open net). His time as a world-class striker (if he ever was one) is done. Maybe he can still be a decent goal poacher but I don't know. Bench -Wes Brown - 5.0 - solid but his lack of attacking ability really stood out since he took over at rightback for Richards at half-time. -David James - 5.0 - really didn't have a whole lot to do. The question is, would he be better than Paul Robinson at this point? I'd say yes, but England is kind of stuck with a bunch of promising young keepers who aren't proven thus can't just be thrown in there in these huge qualifiers, leaving two flawed options in Robinson and James. -Gareth Barry - 6.0 - he actually did a pretty nice job in the center of the midfield. If England does qualify for Euro '08, he'd be a great utility player to have - can play centermid, wing, or fullback effectively. Also takes PKs for Villa I believe, so would be nice to have in the case of a shootout. -Peter Crouch - 4.0 - never really got into the game. My favorite play was when Crouch was the one sending a cross in, trying to find Kieron Dyer. Switch that around fellas... -Kieron Dyer - 2.0 - he's a winger (and not that good of one) so subbing him for Owen when a goal down and using him as a forward makes little to no sense. He had one great chance that he blew and did not much else. Don't understand why he'd get the call instead of Jermain Defoe, who has been getting shit on at both club and country for a while now. -Shaun Wright Phillips - 5.0 - looked lively as ever but didn't have much of an impact. He's a good super-sub to have though, kind of what Dyer or Vassell used to be. Germany I can't really do player ratings for them since I don't know their players as well. Some random thoughts though... -Bernd Schneider was their best player and probably the best player on the field today. Very good player. -This goal by Pander was ridiculous. -Kevin Kuranyi was pretty much crap imo. It'll look like he had a decent game because he was gifted a goal but other than being at the right place at the right time, he did nothing and wasted possession numerous times. -Philip Lahm, who is one of the best fullbacks in the world imo, had a pretty average game. Probably because England was dominating possession for most of the match, he never had the chance to get forward. Bottom line, even with several of the best players on both teams out, this was still a very entertaining match. England looks like they could be in trouble and may not qualify for Austria/Switzerland next summer with their current combination of average to subpar strikers and terrible goalkeeping. Really it looks like they'll need one of their excellent midfielders to score or they'll have to rely entirely on set pieces (which means they better be playing Becks). I would still bet that they qualify but it's going to be tough.