Gouiri decisive: France defeats German U21

Start of the EM season

The German U21 was not able to gift coach Antonio Di Salvo with a win on his anniversary as boss. At the start of the European Championship season, the selection of the German Football Association lost 0-1 (0-0) against France on Friday.

In front of 5427 spectators in Magdeburg, Amine Gouiri scored the decisive goal with a fine flick (53rd minute). The next top-class test for European champions Germany is on Tuesday (8.45 p.m./ProSiebenMaxx) in Sheffield against England.

On the way to the European Championship finals from June 9 to July 2, 2023 in Romania and Georgia, Di Salvo, who succeeded Stefan Kuntz, who switched to Turkey as national coach a year ago, got the desired position against a top European team.

In the match, which Di Salvo described as a “very important test”, the German selection showed a stable defensive performance over longer stretches, a strong performance against the ball-safe French and a lot of variability on the offensive even without the injured missing captain Jonathan Burkardt.

However, the team around the strong Schalke player Tom Krauss lacked the great penetrating power in attack when trying to overcome the physically robust French with low passes. After a brisk start, the guests around the Bundesliga players Georginio Rutter (Hoffenheim), Kouadio Koné and Nathan Ngoumou (both Mönchengladbach) were not necessarily involved in their offensive actions for a long time.

Until Gouiri, whose market value is estimated at 35 million euros, demonstrated his extra class. Jordan Beyer (Burnley FC) and Malick Thiaw (AC Milan) didn’t bother the Stade Rennes striker vigorously enough when he scored with a technically skilled goal. After that, they determined the events more and let their individual class flash again and again.

How important this attractive international pairing was for both nations was also underlined by the intensity of the duel. Both teams went robust. Even after falling behind, the German team happily countered, Yann Aurel Bisseck (Aarhus GF) sniffed the equalizer after his header (74th), as did Lazar Samardzic (Udinese Calcio/87th).

After seven wins in eight games, long-time Kuntz assistant Di Salvo, who used the last half hour for a number of changes, suffered his second defeat as head coach of the U21s. “I didn’t know that at all,” said Di Salvo on “ProSiebenMaxx” for the anniversary, “It doesn’t feel like it at all because I’ve been a member of the team for a long time.”

90th + 3 mins

Too bad men! We narrowly lose against a very strong French team.

0:1 #GERFRA #U21 #heart show pic.twitter.com/yVnYFUbUaw

— DFB Juniors (@DFB_Junioren) September 23, 2022

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