DIt was definitely not the looks of a deer that went in the direction of the national coach. It was the 69th minute in Amsterdam and Hansi Flick had decided to come off, not for performance reasons or because his team had just conceded the equalizer. It was his best man who should be off the field. But at that moment he didn’t want to know anything about load control. “I just wanted to keep playing,” said Jamal Musiala on Tuesday evening after the 1-1 draw against the Netherlands. “He saw that in my eyes. But when the coach decides, he decides.”
Musiala, 19 years old for a month, nickname “Bambi”, was not just something like the junior boss in the German team on Tuesday, it was more the case that the game as such belonged to him, obeyed his movements. His involvement in Thomas Müller’s opening goal shortly before the break was just one detail among many – and not one of those that meant the actual discovery that evening. It wasn’t the many moments in which Musiala changed the direction of the game with breath-taking turns, opened up spaces of opportunity where there was just oppressive narrowness, and was so quick with head and feet that the Dutchman more than once only with the desperate grab for his jersey.
