In the next few weeks, in which the German Football Association (DFB) will want to maintain the new enthusiasm for the national team with a view to the European Championship, it will probably remind its fans again and again of the moments from this March that sparked this enthusiasm in the first place .
The first seconds of the France game (2-0), when Toni Kroos passed and Florian Wirtz shot. The last minutes of the Netherlands game (2-1), when all the German players wanted to score the winning goal and Niclas Füllkrug managed to do it with his shoulder. But the moment that was at least as important, probably even more important, for what was to follow in the summer will now not be able to be presented as a rousing teaser film because it was not about a pass, not a shot, not a goal – but about a substitution.
On Saturday evening, when the team played in the stadium in Lyon for the first time since the reorganization by the national coach, in the 72nd minute he replaced the player who is rarely if ever replaced in a national team: the captain. And because İlkay Gündoğan (along with Wirtz) was the first German player to be substituted that evening, Julian Nagelsmann wasn’t sure at that moment what the consequences would be.
When players and coaches immediately exchanged ideas on the sidelines, the dialogue is said to have gone like this. “I lost too many balls,” said Gündoğan. “Everything’s good,” said Nagelsmann. And in that moment he knew that everything was really good.
Nagelsmann and the trust of his players
On the one hand, this anecdote, which the national coach told on Tuesday evening in the stadium in Frankfurt, speaks for İlkay Gündoğan, who won the Champions League as captain of Manchester City in June 2023 and yet remained such a self-critical and selfless football player. On the other hand, it speaks above all for Julian Nagelsmann, who succeeded in getting a Champions League winner to not only accept his decision, but also understand it.
One can therefore safely say that Nagelsmann is the “biggest winner” of these March days, as the “Kicker” commented after the game. But you also have to say that Nagelsmann was only able to win so much because he had lost so much before. But that doesn’t change the fact that the team’s new clarity came from the coach’s new clarity. It is unimportant why he replaced his old ideas (Kai Havertz as a so-called rail player on the wing) with new ideas (Toni Kroos’ return action, clear definition of roles). All that matters is that he recognized that new ideas were needed.
Tobias Rabe, Frankfurt Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 21 Stephan Löwenstein, Vienna Published/Updated: Recommendations: 1 Christopher Meltzer, Lyon Published/Updated: Recommendations: 18 Christopher Meltzer Published/Updated: Recommendations: 12
On Tuesday evening, when the Netherlands put the German team under pressure in the first minutes of the second half, Nagelsmann – this time, he later said, also on the advice of the team doctor – replaced his captain Gündoğan first. And even though the German team could have lost the game afterwards, it was already apparent that the national coach had already gained something more important at that point: the trust of his players.
