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DFB team before World Cup after 0-1 against Hungary with a long list of defects

Egood preparation is certainly not everything in football, but you can’t do without it either. The German national team experienced this extremely painfully at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. While other teams meticulously fine-tuned their sporting master plan, Germany spent weeks debating photos of two internationals with the Turkish president. The following false start to the tournament was the beginning of a quick end. The Mexicans won 1-0, and their well-prepared coach Juan Carlos Osorio said: “We had a match plan that we drew up six months ago.”

Tobias Rabe

Responsible editor for Sport Online.

What plan Japan has for the first game of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is of course still a secret. Coach Hajime Moriyasu, however, should have paid close attention on Friday evening after his own 2-0 win in the friendly against the USA in Düsseldorf. What he saw from Leipzig certainly gave the Japanese some inspiration as to how it could work out with a success when his team meets the selection of the German Football Association (DFB) on November 23 at the Khalifa International Stadium: Hungary had a match plan and won the Nations League match with – 1:0.

The fact that the team of Italian coach Marco Rossi can defend excellently shouldn’t have surprised anyone in Germany. Even at the 2-2 draw at the European Championships in the summer of 2021, Joachim Löw’s selection rarely got through, in the first leg in the Nations League under Hansi Flick in June things didn’t look much better at 1-1. And if a work of art on the offensive is added to the craftsmanship on the defensive, that can even be enough to win. Ádám Szalai extended the ball with his heel from a half-high corner onto the near post into the far corner (17th minute).

“It opened our eyes”

But it was also part of the truth of Leipzig that the simple Hungarian plan only worked so well because the Germans presented themselves so poorly. Around the stroke of genius of the former Bundesliga player Szalai, who will end his career in the national team after the game against Italy (8.45 p.m. on DAZN) on Monday, Flick’s selection showed a remarkable performance, a remarkably bad one. Exactly two months before the opening of the World Cup, a disappointed national coach had to state: “The first half was definitely the worst in the 14 international matches.”

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