National team: Tactical trick – the secret behind the German record goal

Football tactical trick

The secret behind the German record goal

As of: 09:21 a.m. | Reading time: 2 minutes

DFB team has a perfect start to the European Championship year

The DFB team beat France 2-0 in the international match. WELT reporter Christian Beilfuss explains what influence the early goal and Kroos’ return had on this victory.

After just under eight seconds, the ball hit the net for the first time in Germany’s 2-0 win against France. A record hit – and coincidence? No! The fastest international goal in DFB history came from a plan. A Dane concocted it.

Credit for the fastest international goal in DFB history after eight seconds in the win against France went to Mads Buttgereit, as well as shooter Florian Wirtz and provider Toni Kroos. Mads who? The 38-year-old Dane was hired as a set-piece coach by the DFB in the summer of 2021 on the initiative of then national coach Hansi Flick and had the idea for the impressive hold-up goal immediately after kick-off on Saturday evening in the national team’s 2-0 win in Lyon.

“Mads said we should try that at kick-off,” reported Bayern professional Jamal Musiala after the game. Kai Havertz passed the ball to Kroos at the kick-off and then sprinted forward like Musiala. Kroos pirouetted with the ball and then passed it surprisingly steeply with centimeter precision to Wirtz, who took the ball, dribbled a few meters and finally surprised the French with a wonderful 22-meter shot under the crossbar. “We were caught cold and passive, we couldn’t restart well,” commented France coach Didier Deschamps.

It was a magnificent German game overture. “The kick-off was planned that way and was excellently prepared by standard coach Mads Buttgereit,” said national coach Julian Nagelsmann. The execution was intended to be exactly that way. “We actually didn’t practice it,” Wirtz revealed after his first international goal, “but we went through it on the screen.”

National coach Julian Nagelsmann with standard specialist Mads Buttgereit

Source: picture alliance/GES/Markus Gilliar

Kroos commented on the successful campaign in a typically humorous way: “The standard trainers had enough time – four months – to think of something.” It was “actually planned that way”.

Podolski was the DFB team’s previous record holder

After almost eight seconds, the ball landed in the goal net. Wirtz did a “sensational” job of finishing, praised Nagelsmann: “An outstanding shot.” ​​The previous record holder was 2014 world champion Lukas Podolski, who scored after nine seconds in the DFB team’s 4-2 win against Ecuador on May 29, 2013 in Miami had met.

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Germany’s standard specialist Buttgereit was inspired by the NFL and was already in discussion with FC Bayern. Before joining the DFB, he worked for the Danish club FC Midtjylland, among others. Thanks to him, the Danish provincial club once became one of the most dangerous dead-ball teams in Europe. Buttgereit then worked in the Danish association’s youth team, which quietly and secretly promoted him to the coaching staff of the A team in the run-up to the 2021 European Championship. Flick then poached him.