analyse
The German national soccer team impressed with a victory in France and also impressed those who had concerns. National coach Julian Nagelsmann distributed clear roles and therefore starting places.
A number of French fans were already on their way home in the 90th minute, so they missed the moment to say goodbye to a player with applause. It wasn’t anyone from their team – they had to listen to whistles when they were substituted. It was Toni Kroos, whom they escorted off the pitch with dignity and applause.
Deniz Undav was lucky not only to be in the stadium, but also to celebrate his debut for the German national team on the pitch. He played for almost ten minutes with Kroos, about whom he then said: “I enjoy watching him play – and everyone should do that.” In a way, everyone raved about the “peace of peace that was exactly what we wanted,” as captain İlkay Gündoğan said.
Learned from the basketball players
The way it sounded that evening after the 2-0 win against France and the way it looked on the pitch, German football must be afraid of the time when Toni Kroos really and permanently retires.
A few weeks ago, national coach Julian Nagelsmann announced in an interview with the news magazine “Spiegel” that he wanted to learn from the German basketball world champions and clearly distribute the roles for his players before the big tournament, in this case the European Championship in Germany become.
Plan works
In Lyon we had to see for the first time whether this made sense and was already bearing fruit. “I think it would be good if we remained a little humble,” said Niclas Füllkrug, who, however, dismissed any suspicion that he was a professional doubter: “Of course I expected such a performance. It would be bad if we wouldn’t believe in us themselves.”
Those who had concerns, which there must have been in large numbers after the miserable performances in the defeats against Turkey and in Austria, must have been very surprised at how well the plan worked on Saturday evening (March 23rd, 2024).
“We knew that we needed a good remaining defense against the French who were strong on the counterattack,” said Füllkrug, and he saw that. When was the last time a German national player could rightly claim that? Has it been months, maybe even years?
Mittelstädt lacks experience at the highest level
Toni Kroos as a haven of calm, pace setter, but also ball accelerator, alongside Robert Andrich as the one who has the backs of everyone next to him and in front of him. Everything fit in these roles. With Gündogan, one or two passes were missed by his teammate, but even with the necessary humility it would have been bad if everything had gone very well. This restriction also applied to left-back Maximilian Mittelstädt, who, as a debutant in the national team and having only played three games in the Europa League a few years ago, lacks experience at the highest level.
Young stars rotate across the field
This is different for the young stars Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala and Kai Havertz, who is only a few years older. With constant rotation, the German offensive players pulled the French defenders out of position, so that there were always spaces into which they could pass or dribble.
In contrast to the unimaginative game of the vice world champion, who tried to pass the ball to his two lightning-fast wings Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé with good wishes and then send them off with best wishes while dribbling.
German game more mature
The German game seemed much more mature. “I’m not disappointed with the French game. That’s not my place, I’ll leave that to my colleague Didier Deschamps. Besides, that would only detract from our performance,” said Julian Nagelsmann at the end of a working day for which he had called for “just good to kick”.
This has been achieved so impressively that doubters and optimists alike will now be watching the game against the Netherlands, which kicks off on Tuesday in Frankfurt, spellbound. The team will mostly play in the same line-up as they did in Lyon. The roles are distributed, “we turned off in time for the home European Championship,” said Nagelsmann. It looks like he found the way.
