In the seventh second of this game, Florian Wirtz was once again lurking where the fans of the German national soccer team certainly wanted to see him lurking at that point: in the opponent’s half. And the clever Wirtz might have shot the ball at the opponent’s goal again in that seventh second if there hadn’t been a problem: He himself was in the opponent’s half – only the ball wasn’t there.
An expectation arose when it was clear that the Germans would also be allowed to take the first kick-off of the game in Frankfurt. And when Kai Havertz then passed the ball to Toni Kroos, you could think of Saturday evening in Lyon, when Kroos passed the ball to Wirtz and he shot the ball into the goal. But this time Kroos didn’t play straight to Wirtz, but across to Robert Andrich. And when he continued to play to Joshua Kimmich, seven seconds had already passed.
But in the fourth minute the ball was where the German national team fans wanted to see it: in the goal. But then there was the next problem: he wasn’t in the Dutch goal. When Joey Veerman and the other players in the Dutch team were happy about this 1-0 win, from a German perspective one could and had to ask very early in the game: This remarkable 2-0 win in France was not just one It was a big illusion, wasn’t it?
No illusion
No, you could tell that shortly afterwards, that wasn’t him. The Germans made it 1-1 too quickly for that. Afterwards, they repeatedly played too securely on the ball and too light-footed (even though Jamal Musiala, probably the lightest-footed German, strangely kept slipping on the poor pitch).
And when the ball flew a few millimeters over the goal line after a corner kick from substitute Niclas Füllkrug’s shoulder in the 85th minute – as the goal line technology confirmed – before the strong Dutch goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen wiped it out, and Germany won 2-1 , one could say a little more confidently with a view to the European Championships: No, that really wasn’t an illusion.
In the stadium in Frankfurt, national coach Julian Nagelsmann sent the players onto the field who were allowed to start in France on Saturday – and who, with the exception of goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen, can be confident that they will also start in Munich 80 days later the European Championships will open there. And that was probably the realization of these international matches: there are ten outfield players who are set for the time being. And that is a realization that should not be underestimated when looking at the old national coach Hansi Flick and his never-ending search for a functioning starting eleven.
In the first minutes of the game, the focus was on a man who no one would have expected to be in this starting line-up just a few weeks ago: Maximilian Mittelstädt from VfB Stuttgart. In the fourth minute, the full-back played the ball so imprecisely that it could not safely reach central defender Jonathan Tah.
Kroos makes the game quick
When he saw the bad pass, Memphis Depay, the speedy striker from the Netherlands, launched an attack: He stole the ball into the German penalty area, where he passed it to Joey Veerman, who shot it inside the goal. But you could see from Mittelstädt that, unlike in previous months, this German team has the self-confidence that they can cope with such a mistake: When the ball rolled to his feet on the edge of the penalty area in the eleventh minute, he didn’t hesitate , but shot: the ball flew to the bottom edge of the crossbar – and into the goal.
And what did the German who was the center of attention on Saturday do? What was Toni Kroos doing? He had to deal with a mandecker. The Netherlands national coach, Ronald Koeman, would have called Tijjani Reijnders on him. But that didn’t stop Kroos from repeatedly making the game quick with precise passes. And in these moments you could see why he can do what no one else in the German team can: He played the ball into gaps that you can only play into if your speed and precision are close to perfection.
The Dutch started better in the second half. First Reijnders shot over the goal (57th minute), then Depay (61st). It was noticeable in this phase that they played with more intensity than the French on Saturday. But then Nagelsmann changed and his team regained control of their intensity.
In the 59th minute, the national coach sent Pascal Groß and Chris Führich onto the field, and in the 73rd minute Thomas Müller and Niclas Füllkrug. It was Müller who almost made it 2-1 in the 83rd minute, but Bart Verbruggen saved his shot. And it was Füllkrug who, with a bit of luck, put the ball into the goal after a corner kick in the 85th minute. The corner kick was taken by Toni Kroos.
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