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Germany spent their week plagued by mosquitoes and, on Saturday night, they came through a storm. But though damp and badly bitten, they are through to the quarter-finals of the European Championship having beaten Denmark 2-0 in Dortmund on Saturday.
That hardly describes the drama of a game played within a tempest, nor a match that was ultimately decided by pernickety VAR decisions.
This offside in the build-up to Joachim Andersen’s goal led to the Denmark centre-back’s strike being ruled out
Soon afterwards, Andersen was penalised for this handball and Germany took the lead through the resulting penalty
But perhaps nothing was as dramatic as the news that began the night. Rumours had persisted all week that head coach Julian Nagelsmann might alter his team, possibly by including Niclas Fullkrug in place of Kai Havertz, but nobody anticipated the wicked curveball he threw.
He dropped Florian Wirtz, the Bundesliga player of the season, and changed his formation to accommodate Leroy Sane, a wholly different attacking player. Maximilian Mittelstadt was left out, too. Mittelstadt’s inverting full-back play has been integral to this new Germany, a signature of Nagelsmann’s new style, but he was replaced by David Raum, a much more orthodox player, far more comfortable close to the touchline.
Germany emerged unbeaten from the group stage. They have not lost a game in 2024. And yet Nagelsmann was willing to rethink his team’s mechanics before sending them out onto the high-wire of the knockout rounds.
It worked. Germany profited from two refereeing decisions. One in which a Danish goal was disallowed, another which gave them a penalty. Nevertheless, around those incidents they played extremely well, creating all sorts of chances and demanding an outstanding performance from Denmark goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.
Individually, Sane was good without being outstanding, but that was beside the point. His driving, direct attacking play is in sharp contrast to Wirtz’s more traditional playmaking attributes. The fear for Germany was that their lack of width, which has been a concern since Nagelsmann took the job, would simply funnel them towards an obdurate Danish defence. This team has greatly improved, but it still has a weakness in transition, which opponents quick to counter can exploit. Germany do not enjoy playing teams capable of sitting and breaking at pace.
As it was, Sane’s skill and speed were challenges the Danes were not expecting to face. Germany’s attacking play is built on positional rotations and interchanges. Involving him in that system made Sane a threat on the right, the left, and sometimes through the centre. His decisions with the ball were not always the best. In fact, he squandered one excellent first-half chance on the break. But — alongside the excellent trio of Jamal Musiala, Havertz and Ilkay Gundogan — he allowed Germany to play with a broader range.
The addition of Raum proved successful, too. While Mittelstadt has often been picked for his contribution in-field, on Saturday Raum was preferred for the opposite trait. Nagelsmann wanted him wide, stretching the pitch and forcing gaps between a Danish defence which often dropped deep in the first half and had five players across the back. It did not matter. Germany created excellent chances in all sorts of ways. Headers and long balls for Havertz. Shooting chances for Musiala. Set-piece opportunities for all sorts of players. By full-time, Germany had had 15 shots by eight different players.
A highly pressurised last-16 game is a strange venue for an experiment, but this one was a success.
And Nagelsmann’s changes were particularly radical because since victories over France and the Netherlands in March, Germany have pursued continuity — even at their own risk. They confirmed their qualification for the knockout rounds with victory in their second game against Hungary. Nevertheless, Nagelsmann resisted the urge to make changes for their third match, against Switzerland, despite the threat of injury and suspension, because he was still trying to manufacture cohesion and chemistry.
The more the team played together the better, he reasoned. He has only been in this job for nine months. The team that arrived at this tournament had really only been in place for three and lacked the deep chemistry and instinctive understanding needed at the highest level of the game.
It was a significant policy change. More broadly, these were big changes to make at this point in a tournament.
Germany started the game with a purpose and intensity that had not been seen in the past few years, let alone at this competition. Speaking afterwards, Nagelsmann described his side’s initial thrust as “outstanding” and as their “best 20 minutes of the tournament”.
The fans responded, too. Nico Schlotterbeck, the Borussia Dortmund defender drafted in to replace the suspended Jonathan Tah, felt an energy that Germany have not often experienced.
“We have crazy fans supporting us,” Schlotterbeck said. “The stadium was shaking. I’m used to that from Dortmund, but not so much from the national team. We have triggered something in this country,”
Germany will now head to Stuttgart on Friday to face either Spain or Georgia. Schlotterbeck grew up in the region and he will have friends and family in the crowd — a crowd which, with every win, is growing louder and more raucous.
Germany has been out of love with its football team for a long time now. For 10 years, since winning the World Cup in 2014, the country has been growing disaffected over scandal and poor performance. So, the momentum, the optimism, the euphoria? Defeat by Denmark would not have dented this revival. It would have destroyed it.
Nagelsmann was relatively demure after the game. He accepted his side had been lucky, but took issue with the first-half decision to disallow a Schlotterbeck header, describing the referee’s call as “very petty”. But his players deserved their win, he said, and praised them for how well they coped with the unique challenges of the night.
“We fought really well against the adversity (of the interruption, referencing the game being delayed for 24 minutes because of lightning). This team’s resilience is strong.”
They are strong, but they are also smart — and Nagelsmann will be emboldened by this success. The substance of and strategy behind this win has enhanced his status as national team coach. His Germany still have flaws and should they face Spain on Friday, they would likely be underdogs, even at their own tournament. Increasingly, though, this seems to be a head coach in perfect command of his group of players and their range of abilities.
Germany may not be the best team at this tournament, but they are among the most strategically agile.
(Top photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
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