AWhen the team from Peru lined up for a team photo before the friendly on Saturday evening, not only the players from the starting lineup could be seen there, but everyone from the squad. When the game against Germany in Mainz started, according to the rules, there were only eleven players left on the pitch.
When the Belgium team lined up for a team photo ahead of Tuesday night’s friendly, only the starting line-up was visible. However, when the game against Germany started in Cologne, it felt like all the players in the squad were out on the pitch, contrary to the rules.
The supposed majority of the Belgians was just an illusion – like so much that evening, when the German national football team actually wanted to take a good step forward towards the 2024 European Championship in their own country, when they actually wanted to spark anticipation among the fans which players actually wanted to recommend for the tournament in Germany, where Hansi Flick’s starting eleven should actually get a foundation. It remained an evening in the subjunctive. Instead, the Germans stumbled very badly at first, then got up again, spun in circles, fell down again and when they got to their feet again, they were standing in the Cologne rain and didn’t really know what to do either. And now?
“That was nothing!”
Two of actually only eleven Belgians quickly take advantage of the confusion of the eleven Germans. Yannick Carrasco scored in the sixth minute and Romelu Lukaku in the ninth. The way they appeared in front of goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen was more like a training game. The Belgians had more chances, for example when Dodi Lukabakio from Berlin ran towards Ter Stegen after a German corner with amateurish protection, but narrowly missed (19′), or Lukaku hit the bar with a header before David Raum’s attempt to clear the ball almost resulted in an own goal became (21st).
Flick, who tried to create a narrative after the game that also emphasized positive aspects not only of this game but also of the national team’s first nine days together after the World Cup debacle, could not help but blame his players for the bad start in his analysis to critisize. “The first 20, 25 minutes weren’t what we had planned. We were very passive there,” said Flick. “You have to accept the duels, we didn’t do that at first. It must remain unique that we saw such 25 minutes.” Captain Joshua Kimmich hopes so too: “The first 30 minutes were really bad, the first 15 we weren’t on the pitch at all, very prone to errors, especially with the ball, not hungry at all. That was nothing!”
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