World Cup 2014: Five flaws with Germany's final squad

Germany risk over-depending on Miroslav Klose at the World Cup

Germany are 7.413/2 third favourites to win the World Cup, but there are several faults with their 23-man squad...

Lack of conventional full backs
Joachim Low's decision to jilt Marcel Schmelzer and Marcell Jansen leaves Germany a bit short at full back. Borussia Dortmund duo Kevin Grosskreutz and Erik Durm were both converted from more forward positions, while Jerome Boateng primarily functions as a centre back, so Philipp Lahm is the sole "career full back" in the squad, and even he has spent much of this season in central midfield.

Injuries laying waste to the midfield
Sami Khedira and Bastian Schweinsteiger both recovered in time to be included, yet how fit they are is unclear, and the issue is exacerbated by the unavailability of Ilkay Gundogan and understudies Lars and Sven Bender. Instead, if Khedira or Schweinsteiger's bodies can't withstand the rigours of tournament football, the cover is Christoph Kramer, who has only been capped twice, or Matthias Ginter, who usually plays at centre back.

The Klose dependency
With Mario Gomez omitted after an injury-riddled campaign and Stefan Kiessling, Max Kruse and Pierre-Michel Lasogga overlooked, Miroslav Klose is the only conventional striker in the Brazil-bound 23. The soon-to-be 36-year-old is a World Cup legend, who is a goal shy of Ronaldo's all-time competition scoring record, but a 58% Serie A start rate for Lazio in 2013/14 casts doubt on his ability to stay fit.

Attacking midfielder overkill
Despite Low claiming to have two players for every position, there appear to be eight options for the three spots behind the front man: Mesut Ozil, Andre Schurrle, Lukas Podolski, Thomas Muller, Julian Draxler, Toni Kroos, Mario Gotze and Marco Reus. It is going to be impossible to feed each of them the sufficient minutes to thrive, with a likely consequence being a lot of grumpy benchwarmers.

Too many untested travellers
Six members of the World Cup squad have represented Germany four times or less, indicating that lack of cohesion is a worry. While you would assume this is a symptom of their admirable trust in youth, three of the cap-light sextet are 25 or older. They took just two such internationally-inexperienced players to Euro 2012, and one of those was third-choice goalkeeper Ron-Robert Zieler.

Germany are 1.738/11 favourites to top Group G, and 2.186/5 to win their opener against Portugal