Florian Wirtz led the German U21 national team to the final of the European Championship with an early double. The 18-year-old laid the foundation for victory in the 2-1 (2-0) against the Netherlands with two goals in the first eight minutes.
This means that coach Stefan Kuntz’s team is in the final for the third time in a row and will fight Portugal on Sunday, which surprisingly threw defending champions Spain out of the race, for the third title after 2009 and 2017.
The Leverkusen Wirtz got off to a dream start: Lukas Nmecha crossed with his outside instep on the short post, where Wirtz held out his foot and scored his first goal in the U21 jersey. After 29 seconds, it was also the fastest goal in U21 European Championship history. Shortly afterwards (8th), by far the youngest player in the DFB line-up. During the group stage in March, when the two teams separated 1: 1, Wirtz was still in action with the senior national team.
The DFB Juniors could have increased it to 3-0, but a free kick from Mergim Berisha only hit the crossbar (20th).
The offensive of the European champions from 2006 and 2007 saw no stab against the attentive defensive around the returnee Niklas Dorsch. Only after the break did the Netherlands vehemently push for the connection.
On the other side, Berisha hit the post again (60th). A little later, Perr Schuurs (67th) shortened with a low shot and ensured an exciting final phase. Myron Boadu even scored the supposed equalizer (85th) but was clearly offside.
