The DFB has been down for years. Everything is dark, everything is negative. Nobody can save the DFB team. She stumbles from rock bottom to rock bottom. Then Julian Nagelsmann comes and becomes national coach. After his 3-1 debut everyone suddenly said the word “fun”. It was extinct in the DFB environment.
What actually happened at Pratt & Whitney Stadium in Hartford?
“Our games create a mood of optimism. But first win, and then a mood. There is no mood without victories,” said Thomas Müller, describing the situation surrounding the German national football team exactly eight months before the opening game of the home European Championship next year. Winning has been a problem for the DFB team in recent months. It had become so big that Hansi Flick had to vacate the national coaching position.
Thomas Müller is the DFB’s house philosopher.
(Photo: IMAGO/MIS)
Successor Julian Nagelsmann now has to ensure victories. And just the mood. For his premiere against the USA, Nagelsmann has put together a squad that is tailor-made for that tournament: With an average age of 28.5, it is the oldest squad since the leaden era of Erich Ribbeck sometime around the turn of the millennium. Since 1963, no national coach has ever sent an older starting eleven (28.97 years old) onto the field than Nagelsmann in Hartford.
With the returnee Mats Hummels, the eternal Thomas Müller and the 32-year-old newcomer Kevin Behrens, the newcomer has brought in a few players who – without being too disrespectful – are unlikely to be part of the DFB team’s distant future. Nagelsmann has eight months and only a handful of games left to finally put together a German national football team that can be taken seriously internationally after three disastrous tournaments.
The first step has been taken, here Pratt & Whitney Stadium in Hartford. The DFB team beat the USA 3:1 (1:1) and thus ensures a good atmosphere. Nagelsmann’s ensemble reacted strongly to a deficit and in the second half they outplayed the Americans at times. “That’s the most important topic to get a good mood. In football it’s always like this, when you win, everything you did before was good,” Nagelsmann himself said on the topic of mood. So all is well for the moment.
How did Julian Nagelsmann actually end up in Hartford?
It was also uncomfortable in the stadium.
(Photo: IMAGO/MIS)
“Far away in America” was the last song by a DFB national team. Together with the Village People they dreamed of defending their title at the 1994 World Cup. But the end came on July 10, 1994 at the Giants Stadium in Rutherford. Jordan Letschkow went up in the 78th minute, Thomas Häßler couldn’t get there. Bulgaria 2 Germany 1. After the quarterfinals we went home. The national team never took another single to the World Cup again. Berti Vogts remained national coach, and two years later Germany won the 1996 European Championship in England. Since then, the DFB team has remained without a title at continental level.
Everything should change in 2024. The home European Championship should not only be a new summer fairy tale, but should finally stop the fall of the national team since the 2014 World Cup title in Rio. But the big goal has been in danger for some time. World champion coach Joachim Löw had to leave, Hansi Flick came from FC Bayern Munich as an all-winner and quickly became an all-loser. He became a symbol of dull football, of endless complaining, of disappearing into insignificance.
With the World Cup documentary broadcast on Amazon and a defeat against Japan in Wolfsburg, his time came to an end. The once mighty federal eagle on its chest had shrunk into a disoriented gray goose. Suddenly Rudi Völler was on the sidelines. He played the last of his 54 international matches against Bulgaria in 1994, was national coach from 2000 to 2004 and suddenly also won against France.
But Völler, who only returned from retirement to the DFB in February 2023, didn’t want to and so the former coaching prodigy Julian Nagelsmann came out of exile as part of an almost national effort. He was chased away from Bayern in March and had been waiting for a real offer ever since. He got the biggest one. Lead the national team through the home tournament. “That doesn’t sound so bad,” he said before his debut against the USA about his new job title “national coach”. It stood in Pratt & Whitney Stadium in Hartford, less than three hours’ drive from the site of the disaster in 1994. Back then, an exit in the World Cup quarter-finals was a catastrophe, now the DFB is dreaming of one after the disastrous last World Cup tournaments in Russia and Qatar World Cup quarterfinals. Julian Nagelsmann should make this comeback possible.
How was the DFB team able to turn around a deficit?
Lothar Matthäus wasn’t the only one who was thrilled. For only the second time, Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz started a national team game together. “These are artists. I’m really happy,” said the RTL expert before the game about the new DFB duo in the headquarters. Matthäus loves beautiful football and of course he likes the national team’s two biggest promises at the moment.
But Musiala and Wirtz were of course an exception. It was already clear when he was nominated: Nagelsmann sees his job as it was presented to him in the job advertisement. First of all, take care of the European Championships – with experience. A total of six players over 30 were in the starting line-up in Hartford. At first they didn’t notice their age. They pressed high, won balls, benefited from the enthusiasm of Wirtz and Musiala, and of course Leroy Sané.
Niclas Füllrkug (m.) celebrates after his goal to make it 2:1. Ilkay Gündogan and Jamal Musiala also scored. Mats Hummels straddled.
(Photo: IMAGO/Student)
“We have to help ourselves defensively,” Nagelsmann said before the game. He asked Toni Rüdiger, Mats Hummels and Jonathan Tah to talk to each other. There was no time for that in the 27th minute. Former BVB player Christian Pulisic caught the trio’s attention and walked through. It was the brief return of disorientation. Rüdiger missed the opportunity to disturb Pulisic, who circled to the far corner and scored.
Nagelsmann had warned exactly about this and also called for calm.
Not everything will work immediately. And that’s the way it was. They carried the ball into the goal to make it 1-1 through Gündogan in the 39th minute. At first it was often just individual actions, Musiala often got stuck, Wirtz lacked the final security, left-back Robin Gosens often pushed up as desired, then was missing at the back in defense. Until 2:1 in the 58th minute. Then it clicked. Gosens stood tall and right, Füllkrug scored confidently. His eighth goal in his tenth international match. Musiala whirled again. The game was alive and the Bayern star scored. The national team had turned a game around. And how: calm and determined, focused and not panicked. The self-confidence is back. Lothar Matthäus had every reason to be excited again. “The game warmed me up,” he said after the game: “I enjoyed it.”
What do we take away from the game now?
Mats Hummels protests half-heartedly.
(Photo: IMAGO/Student)
Fun! Ease is back in the German game. While the success against France could almost be seen as a gift from French national coach Didier Deschamps to his old friend Rudi Völler, this comeback victory in the USA was of a different quality. The sedateness of the Flick days was gone and happiness returned. The DFB team, as trite as it sounds, had worked for it. She saw Pulisic’s deficit as an invitation to defend herself and not give in. She was always present.
The absence of Joshua Kimmich enabled Nagelsmann to sneak Pascal Groß into the starting line-up without much disruption. The 32-year-old from the Premier League thanked him – with his excellent passing game, with some good moves on offense and as a clearer in midfield. He could be found in both penalty areas and tirelessly closed the once gaping holes in the center. The USA hardly had any moments of transition and were pushed to the outside.
The stop sign, which the team had been missing for a long time, was large and Sané, Wirtz, Musiala and Füllkrug were up to mischief at the front. With their intransigence, they presented their opponents with too many tasks. They simply couldn’t solve all of them. The search for the perfect game continues, and no one expected an answer at this point anyway. In exactly eight months, for the first European Championship game, the national team has to be there. However, national coach Nagelsmann has kept his first promise. “I’m confident that we can enjoy the game,” he said before the game. And that’s the way it was.
What did the always fashion-conscious national coach actually wear?
Julian Nagelsmann looked great again.
(Photo: IMAGO/MIS)
Julian Nagelsmann unpacked the lumberjack shirt in the far north of the USA and Mats Hummels probably saw this as a recommendation for action. The 34-year-old returnee at least saw it as an invitation for something that would at best be called a heroic move and, at worst, result in a red card.
Former Barcelona player Sergino Dest ran away on the left side of the attack in the 44th minute, Dortmund’s record player (207 Bundesliga wins) jumped and aimed towards the ball. But it was long gone. Instead of securing the ball with his left leg, Hummels cleared the 22-year-old US international. It flew and flew and landed. Referee Fernando Guerrero surprisingly left it with a yellow card. Julian Nagelsmann adjusted his lumberjack shirt.
Is Hartford now finally a magical place for German sports?
It was July 24, 1987, when Boris Becker wrote a piece of German sports history in Hartford: In a monumental tennis match, the then 18-year-old defeated the great John McEnroe: 4:6, 15:13, 8:10, 6: After an eternal 6 hours and 39 minutes it was 2, 6:2 for the German in the second singles of a legendary Davis Cup encounter. “The day is over,” say the commentators. When Becker converted the match point, the sun had already risen again in Germany.
Now, 36 years later, German sport is returning to Hartford. And now he releases the Germans into the night. Again with a win, again after falling behind. But unlike the tennis “war”, as Becker called his duel, Nagelsmann’s debut will probably be long forgotten in 36 years. Unless this debut is the starting point of something big. A European Championship title, for example. We will see.
The voices for the game
Mats Hummels (returnee): “It was a lot of fun. The key was our possession of the ball. We had a few careless turnovers in the first half. We were much more confident in the second half.”
Julian Nagelsmann (debutant): “We came back very well after the deficit. That wasn’t so easy after the last few months and the deficit. In terms of football, it was very good. We didn’t just choke together the win. That was a very good step today.”