When Jürgen Klinsmann prepared a blueprint to change the face of German football, six years ago, he took his inspiration from the Premier League. It was not unusual to see him or his assistant, Joachim Löw, at matches in England and they saw the future for their country in the high-tempo, direct style in front of them.
Löw succeeded Klinsmann as Germany manager after the 2006 World Cup and he has continued to drum English fundamentals into his players. When the nations meet in the last 16 of this year's finals, on Sunday in Bloemfontein, the Germans intend to beat England at their own game.
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"Our philosophy was always to play a fast-paced, attacking style of football. That is what we introduced to the German national team," Klinsmann said. "We developed a team to start passing from the back, hitting balls to the strikers but keeping the ball on the ground. It is a process that has taken Germany six years to learn to play but England were playing that way six years ago.
"Joachim and myself often went over to Premier League games and we tried to implement a style that really creates more speed and creativity. As a result, there is now a generation of German players coming through that has become used to that system and they are comfortable with it. The players have now grown into it and Joachim is continuing that by telling the players that they have to be proactive and highly energetic going forward, with one or two touches if possible. But we still want to create space for creative players like Mesut Ozil."
Klinsmann's team enjoyed a run to the semi-finals in 2006, losing to the eventual champions, Italy, and reflected the new, 21st-century Germany with the vibrancy of their football. Löw's class of 2010 are different; there are only nine survivors from 2006 and 12 of the 23 are aged 24 or under. Klinsmann, who had two spells at Tottenham Hotspur in the 1990s, noted that "in Germany, you can watch all the English games at the weekend and people do". The squad's young players cannot remember a time when they were not drip-fed football from the Premier League.
"There is big excitement about Sunday's game," Klinsmann said, "because there is so much respect for English football, the big English clubs and the way that England play. England showed during qualification that they can play so we are not just looking at them from their three group games. Joachim knows exactly what this England team are capable of doing."
Löw's 4-2-3-1 formation is designed to spring numbers forward at pace, including from the full-back positions. Although Bastian Schweinsteiger has been reinvented as a central midfielder by Louis van Gaal at Bayern Munich and tends to hold in Löw's team, his partner, Sami Khedira, who has made light of the absence of the injured Michael Ballack, charges from box to box. In front of them, from right to left, Thomas Müller, Ozil and Lukas Podolski fuse pace, technique and penetration. All of these players could fit seamlessly into Premier League teams.
Klinsmann rates the lone striker, Miroslav Klose, as an "exceptional talent". He managed Klose at Bayern in 2008-09 and says "he is similar to Wayne Rooney in that he can step up and make a difference". Klose, though, needs man-management and Klinsmann says that while he gets it at international level, he did not over the past domestic season. Klose scored three goals in the Bundesliga for Bayern.
"Klose needs lots of support from the coaching staff. He needs talks, he needs confidence and he needs to be given a good buildup with a focus on him," Klinsmann said. "But at Bayern, he is in a different situation. Since I left the club just over a year ago they have brought in other players for lots of money. They have played them and Bayern have been successful so Klose was on the bench. That meant he came to South Africa with his head down but he has raised it back up now. He is one that, at this level, is the only one who can make the difference."
England will sense vulnerability in Germany's defence. The centre-halves, Arne Friedrich and Per Mertesacker, lack pace and the England manager, Fabio Capello, will have seen how Ghana got in between and behind them. Germany may consider attack to be the best form of defence.
"This is just going to be about two teams going at each other," said Klinsmann, who feels that England's greater experience will not be significant. "We have a young German team [who] are lacking experience but they are playing in a way that shows they are not thinking or worrying too much. They just go out there and play."
Philipp Lahm, the right-back and captain, has said Germany are as mentally strong as ever and that it would not be a match against England without the mention of penalties. All of the scars, though, are England's. "It is more on the English side that this topic is always brought up," Klinsmann said. "But when you are on the losing side, it obviously brings more stress when you try to digest it. We haven't had to do that. I think this Germany team can prove that they are on the level of other German teams. They might not have to win the World Cup to do it but they are ready to prove they are on that level."
Klinsmann was a member of a great Germany team which beat England in the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup and the 1996 European Championship.
"The history of both nations is just amazing," he said. "From the 1966 final, for which the Germans still don't believe the ball was over the line, to the 1990s semi-final, which England could have won in normal time. The England fans want to change that history. That's what they can do on Sunday, so let's see."
