From Julian Draxler to Manuel Neuer, Germany show they are still juggernauts

Ian Hawkey writes in the creative and tricky, if not balletic, Julian Draxler, Germany found their attacking form on Sunday, while Manuel Neuer led a defence as stout as ever.

Germany's Julian Draxler celebrates after scoring their third goal agains Slovakia on Sunday in their Euro 2016 last 16 victory. Pascal Rossignol / Reuters / June 26, 2016

A Pfennig for the thoughts of Mario Gotze, as he watched Germany brush Slovakia aside and make themselves comfortable, even with the prospect of facing face Italy or Spain, in the quarter-finals of Euro 2016.

Gotze, the man whose goal secured the nation the World Cup two years ago, had started all three group matches at this tournament. He was dropped on Sunday, just in time for Germany to hit their higher gears.

We learned some thoughts of Gotze last week, quite quotably. "Sometimes you're the dog, sometimes you're the tree," he said, a vivid metaphor for the ups and downs of a sporting career. Gotze has more downs than ups in the last season, unsure of his place in the Bayern Munich hierarchy, and less and less sure of it in the national side as Germany, sometimes imprecise in front of goal, sometimes laborious in their build-up play, worked their way through the opening phase of Euro 2016.

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It will be hard, after the slaying of the Slovaks, for Gotze to regain his position in the starting XI.

The competition for places in the attacking half of Joachim Low’s team has sharpened. Even Thomas Muller may be looking over his shoulder. He, like Gotze must feel that, even at 26 and 24 years old respectively, there is the hot breath of more youthful ambition at their backs.

Julian Draxler, at 22 the same age Gotze was when he made history, did more than anybody in Lille to tag a label of Euro 2016 favourites onto the German juggernaut.

Draxler, who moved from Schalke, the club of his childhood, to Wolfsburg last summer, has had his challenges over the past nine months. What he did not look, in his country's jersey, was low on self-belief. An ample showreel of his virtuoso tricks could be compiled from his 71 minutes against Solvakia.

By the time he was substituted, his team were 3-0 up, the tie over. By half-time, it probably felt that way in both dressing-rooms, Germany having scored their second just before the interval.

Draxler had set up goal number two, converted by Mario Gomez, after he jinked his way to the goal-line to deliver a low cross via a dummy, a snaky feint of his upper body to suggest to Juraj Kucka, the Slovakian trying in vain to second-guess his next move, that he might try to pass him on the inside.

He went in the other direction. A stepover later, Kucka was undone. Draxler crossed, Gomez scored.

Earlier, Draxler, with his back to goal, had swivelled around to volley wide of goal, having taken a touch control the ball falling with his reach. The manoeuvre was not so delicately done to be quite described as a pirouette. Nor would you overstress the grace of his later “roulette” – a backheel and body twist that sneaked him, with the ball at his feet, out of a tight sandwich of Slovakian markers.

Draxler is built just a little too solidly for all his tricks to look balletic. But he was trying these improvisations, again and again, and Germany were less predictable, less ponderous as result, and far more impressive than they had been in the first two weeks of the tournament.

Draxler took his goal, Germany’s third, confidently, timing an awkward volley sweetly.

Gomez, positioning himself astutely at the near post, had showed a poacher’s intuition for their second. Jerome Boateng, helped by a slight deflection, eased any doubts about the calf problem that troubled him ahead of the match by striking the 20-yard volley for goal number one, seven minutes in, with authoritative power.

All three goals were an emphatic riposte to the criticism about standards of finishing that had echoed, even in Low’s words, after Germany registered over a dozen shots at goal against Northern Ireland in their previous fixture and scored just once.

Uniquely, Germany also take an unblemished defensive record into the last eight. Played four, goals conceded: zero. Manuel Neuer, in goal, made one exceptional intervention, from Kucka’s header, and was bold, as ever, to come out of penalty area, and assured when called on to make the unspectacular saves.

A perfect display? Not quite. Mesut Ozil had a penalty saved in the first half. That might haunt him should Germany require a shoot-out to resolve their next tie, or a semi, or the final.

But on Sunday’s showing, it will need a very strong opponent to keep them at level-pegging for 120 minutes.

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