In amateur football there is a ritual that can be observed again and again when visiting the ash, grass and artificial turf pitches of the republic on the weekend. If the opponent hits a corner and the first flank is blocked, then a player, usually the so-called defense chief, shouts “Raaaaauuuuuus”. This is the signal for all players to move away from their own goal as quickly as possible. And if this happens quickly and in a coordinated manner, the opposing strikers will either be offside on a second attempt at the cross – or far enough away from their own goal for a placed header.
Often that fails because of the inadequacies that exist in amateur football, but that the German national team fails because of something like that, that is rather rare – but it happened when Switzerland went 0-1 on Tuesday evening. Corner, blocked, defense moves out too slowly, header, goal conceded. Manuel Neuer looked as if he couldn’t believe it.
It was a strange game on several levels, this 3: 3 of the DFB team in the Nations League in Cologne against Switzerland and you could just take it easy and talk about the three German goals, all of which were very worth seeing: a nice individual performance by Timo Werner, a perhaps even nicer individual achievement by Kai Havertz, a heel hit by Serge Gnabry – you don’t see it every day.
Kimmich finds the goals conceded “all a bit strange”
But when Havertz, at 21 years of age, calls for a more “adult” defense after the game, then you know what the topic of the hour is. The German team conceded seven goals in the three games against Turkey, Ukraine and now against Switzerland. “It was an interesting game for the coach,” said Löw’s first sentence in the virtual press conference. He saw good things, but also mistakes, and consciously risked a lot.
This time, Löw mainly opted for a back four in defense – and this time, after many games with a back five, he chose the more offensive variant. But the four defenders Robin Gosens, Matthias Ginter, Antonio Rüdiger and Lukas Klostermann have never played together in this line-up, Gosens and Klostermann rarely play as full-backs in a back four in their clubs and that’s exactly what it looked like.
The goals conceded were then not to be blamed for sole culprit, it was rather the failure of coordination and coordination within the chain – perfectly visible in the third goal, when Rüdiger came out and the processes were obviously not right. “I found all goals a bit strange. We have to defend that better,” said Joshua Kimmich.
Who was actually in command in the defense?
Löw was then asked several times after the game who was actually in charge: Ginter? Rudiger? On the pitch, it was not necessarily noticeable, in contrast to FC Bayern, by the way, where David Alaba is a crystal clear spokesman. Löw avoided this question twice, until he said that Niklas Süle was intended for this role. However, Löw left him on the bench with reference to his cruciate ligament injury. The national coach emphasized again that he would like to go into the European Championship tournament with two defense systems: a chain of three and a chain of four. As of now, no variant works smoothly.
All of this was also warned by the ARD expert Bastian Schweinsteiger, who was again surprisingly critical, and clearly demonstrated to the television audience. The big question now is: Are these errors part of the development process that Löw repeatedly referred to? Or should the team start to turn them off slowly?
The DFB team will still play three games in November, a friendly against the Czech Republic, in which the Bayern players in particular will probably have to take a break due to the acute deadline, and two Nations League games against Ukraine and in Seville against Spain. Reassuring for Löw: Spain surprisingly lost the game in Kiev with 0: 1, which retrospectively enhances their own arduous 2-1 victory.
The true state of the national team remains a bit of a mystery. The only thing that is certain is that Löw will not be disturbed. “We have a plan and we are going to go through with it” – he has said the sentence in various variations over the past few days. And also that the criticism from outside continues to impress him only moderately.
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