Three of Germany’s biggest Asian talents

Shinjio Kagawa and Atsuto Uchida have been generating the headlines this season with their accomplished performances for BVB and Schalke respectively, but they aren’t the only talented Asian players currently plying their trade in Germany. Here are three more.

Heung-Min Son

After scoring in a pre-season friendly against Chelsea, Heung-Min Son was prevented from starting the Bundesliga season in attack for Hamburg.

He finally debuted professionally at the end of October in a DFB-Pokal tie against Eintracht Frankfurt, and has since then found himself catapulted into the unrelenting glare of the football spotlight.

Since that game in the German cup, the South Korean attacker has made three starts and four substitute appearances for Hamburg – six of which have ended in defeat.

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Thirty-two tastes of tactics

Marcelo Bielsa, Chile coach at World Cup 2010

Listing catch-all formations runs the risk of disengaging the context in which they were used.

Nevertheless, this is generally more applicable to the club game, but international managers must foist an unconditional style upon their sides.

Infrequent contact and matches mean training camps focus upon reacclimatising to the coach’s methods: there’s just too little time before games to adequately prepare new, finicky masterplans.

The World Cup, where opponents are often discovered several days before the encounter itself, illustrates the difference between the international and club game.

Based on World Cup 2010, I’ve captured the essence of each national team’s current tactics and formation. Here are my attempts to encapsulate the findings in browser-friendly pen profiles.