Finally a victory – and how! With a historic prestige success and fresh momentum from the World Cup, the national soccer team said goodbye to the summer break.
The team of national coach Hansi Flick celebrated their first victory in the Nations League with the easy 5: 2 (2: 0) in the classic against European champions Italy and dispelled the slight doubts about the winning mentality after four draws.
“We played really good football at times and deservedly won,” said Ilkay Gündogan. “If we do it like we do today, many teams will have a hard time against us.” And captain Manuel Neuer spoke of an “important milestone” and praised: “You could see today that we wanted to dominate the game.”
Joshua Kimmich (10th), Gündogan (45th + 4 / penalty), Thomas Müller (51st) and Timo Werner with a brace (68th and 69th) scored the goals for the highest victory in international history over Italy – like in 1939 It was also the first three under Flick against a big player, who was only one on paper in Mönchengladbach’s Borussia Park.
The committed DFB selection ignited “a rocket” against the Italians, who were in upheaval – as captain Manuel Neuer had demanded beforehand. For Italy it was only enough for goals from Wilfried Gnonto (78th) and Alessandro Bastoni (90th + 3rd).
Germany waves group victory in the Nations League
In the Nations League, Germany can complete the group victory in the final games in September against Hungary and England. After that, Flick will call up his squad for the desert World Cup in Qatar (November 21 to December 18).
In the duel between the four-time world champions, Flick trusted his two problem children Leroy Sane and Werner in the starting XI. At least the use of Sane, to whom DFB director Oliver Bierhoff recommended more initiative (“Must help yourself”), came as a surprise. “Every player needs a certain backing, we want to give them that today,” Flick said before kick-off on ZDF.
However, Werner’s self-confidence suffered after just a few seconds when he stumbled the ball after a dream pass from Müller and thus missed a good chance. Sane was also the center of attention immediately, his shot from 20 meters just missed the goal. At the other end, goalkeeper Neuer prevented an early deficit with his right paw against Giacomo Raspadori, who had escaped Niklas Süle (9′).
At the beginning a lot of usury of chances with the DFB team
Unlike the disappointing performance in Hungary, the DFB-Elf looked for the direct route to the opposing goal from the start. Kimmich and Gündogan, who skilfully varied between the depth and width of the ball, liked the game designers. In addition, some of the Flick team moved up a lot, especially the two full-backs Raum and Lukas Klostermann, which posed major problems for the Italians.
The reward was Kimmich’s 1-0 lead: the Bayern professional sneaked into the penalty area, took the ball with his right after a cross from David Raum and pushed his left through the legs of Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Even after that, Germany kept the pressure – but the conversion of chances was a problem. Jonas Hofmann (33rd), Sané (39th) and Werner (40th) missed great opportunities. Gündogan did better from the point after Hofmann was slightly jostled in the penalty area.
The Italians, who are using the Nations League to rebuild their squad after missing out on qualifying for the World Cup, switched to a three-man defense in the second half and came out of the dressing room with verve. But Müller’s goal to make it 3-0 made things clear. The hosts kept finding gaps in the opposing defense – Werner, who was recently unlucky, took advantage of this.