Style of Play
At 1.98 m (6 ft 6 in), Mertesacker is commanding in the air but he is also sound in defending on the ground. He often uses his strength to shrug opponents off the ball and his standing tackle ability to win balls. He rarely slides or makes dirty tackles. Question marks have been raised about his speed and he had been badly exposed in a friendly against Poland. He compensates for his lack of speed by his excellent positional play and anticipation. Despite his height he is regarded as a clean player as he is rarely booked. Due to his height and strength, Mertesacker is also a scoring threat in set-pieces.
Also known for his durability, Mertesacker played the entire 90 minutes in all of Germany's seven games at the 2010 FIFA world cup in South Africa.
Despite often being criticized for not being vocal, he is a good defensive organizer. Mertesacker is also a neat distributor of the ball. He averaged 46.3 passes per game in 2010–2011 season, the third highest in the Bremen squad, and the second highest pass success rate, with 82%. Often Mertesacker is paired with a more mobile and faster defender who can track-back in counter attack situation like Mats Hummels, Arne Friedrich and more recently Laurent Koscielny, though he had successfully formed one of the best defensive pairing in Bundesliga with the equally sized Naldo during his time at Werder Bremen.
Read more about this topic: Per Mertesacker
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