25 games in office
© Imago
After four games without a win in a row, the DFB team succeeded on Sunday evening the breast removal. With the threesome against Northern Ireland, you not only took the first success in the World Cup qualification, for Julian Nagelsmann the 3-1 point of view had a personal touch from a German perspective: thanks to the 13th victory as national coach, the 38-year-old overtook his predecessor Hansi Flick in this statistics.
Nagelsmann took “many knowledge” from his 25th international match (to the reactions after the 3-1 against Northern Ireland), which could also have become a fiasco. For more than 100 years, a DFB team has not lost four games in succession, last time in 1913. However, there were five games without victory more frequently, most recently between March and September 2023. As a result of the results against Belgium (2: 3), Ukraine (3: 3), Poland (0: 1), Colombia (0: 2) and Japan (1: 4), he had to go after 25 international matches. Discussions in this direction with a view to Nagelsmann were initially suffocated in the germ by success against the northern Irish.
With 1.8 points, Nagelsmann has a slightly better point cut with the same number of DFB games than today’s Barcelona coach Flick (1.72). Its predecessor Joachim Löw looked at an average of 2.32 points after 25 games, won 58 of possible 75 points. Its predecessor Jürgen Klinsmann was at the same time with the average record of 1.92, and until then he had 48 points. Rudi Völler came to 2.02 points, Erich Ribbeck did not reach the 25-game brand as yet today and had to take his hat off after 24 games and a point cut of 1.5 in summer 2000.
In the past 60 years, only Ribbeck and Flick-based on their tenure-have had a weaker point cut as a Nagelsmann (for national coach statistics).
Nagelsmann looks ahead: “Many steps to take”
Nagelsmann left the Cologne stadium with great relief as well as the DFB tops around sports director Völler on Sunday evening, but at the same time looked ahead critically. The first victory after three defeats was not more than damage limitation – the goal of 2026 felt in the distance. “We still have many steps to take,” attested the national coach.
The path to group victory in the World Cup qualification remains tough in view of the opening defeat against the Slovaks, the development of the team stalls not least because of the injuries to top players such as Jamal Musiala, Kai Havertz or Nico Schlotterbeck. The quality is missing and the failures of the most valuable German striker, the valuable star of German midfielder and the most valuable German defender cannot be compensated for. Germany seems far from conditions like the European champion Spain, who presented itself world championship at 6-0 in Turkey.