Tsygankov outstanding
The highly symbolic game against Ukraine turns out to be a sporting disappointment for the DFB team. There are three goals conceded in the anniversary game, a year before the European Championship there are many construction sites.
So nothing will happen with a football summer fairy tale in 2024. Exactly one year before the home European Championship kicked off, Hansi Flick and the national team in the very special 1000th international match against Ukraine caused another mood dampener. In the sobering and later even aborted experiment with the back three, the DFB returned to Bremen on Monday evening with a 3: 3 (1: 2). Kai Havertz (83rd) and penalty taker Joshua Kimmich (90th + 1) averted at least the next defeat with late goals. As in the 2-3 friendly against Belgium at the end of March, in front of 35,795 spectators, the DFB team was once again unfit for a tournament, especially defensively.
Bremen’s local hero Niclas Füllkrug deflected a shot from Marius Wolf to make it 1-0 on his seventh goal in seven international matches (6th minute). Viktor Tsygankov (18th) and Antonio Rüdiger (23rd/own goal) not only turned the game around for the guests from Ukraine with a double strike, but also revealed the defensive weaknesses of the hosts. After a mistake by Freiburg’s Matthias Ginter, the outstanding Tsygankov increased (56th). The German fans acknowledged the tired appearance with shouts of “Werder Bremen”.
A year before the start of the EM in his own country, Flick had called for a significant increase and focus. And things started well: Füllkrug missed the lead after 90 seconds after a bad pass from 100-million-man Mykhaylo Mudryk. Shortly thereafter, the Bremen player was involved in the opening goal in his stadium. After a shot by Wolf – the action was initiated by Captain Kimmich – the Bremen player deflected the ball into the goal. The European Football Union attributed the goal to Füllkrug.
But as with the worrying 2-3 defeat against Belgium in March, the defensive behavior of the DFB team was anything but ready for the European Championship. The three-man defense chain with Nico Schlotterbeck, Matthias Ginter and Rüdiger, which Flick tested for the first time, proved to be extremely full of holes. Speed deficits and many weaknesses in positional play caused great irritation for the national coach on the bench. Accordingly, the experiment was switched to a back four in the second half.
Dortmund’s Julian Brandt started the first goal with a bad pass, while Schlotterbeck was too far away from his opponent. A pass from Oleksandr Tymchyk to goalscorer Tsygankov was enough to overturn the German defense. With that, the initially nervous Ukrainian team, whose starting XI included five players from the domestic league, arrived in the game.
There could no longer be any question of a German blemish. After David Raum lost the ball under pressure and Schlotterbeck was not up to par again, the Frankfurt keeper Kevin Trapp had to reach behind him again in his first international match in a good 15 months. Rüdiger deflected Mudryk’s weak shot into his own goal. Shortly before the break, Tymchyk could have caused another setback with a shot at the side netting.
There was nothing to be seen from the initially respectable German game. The spectators got to see summer football instead of a serious EM test. Only a free kick by Leroy Sané on the crossbar just before the break (45+3) made the fans in Bremen jump up again in their first international match after more than eleven years. Because of the legal dispute between the Hanseatic city and the German Football League over the assumption of police costs, the DFB had not awarded any games there for several years.
And Flick didn’t want to lose this game as well. The indisposed Schlotterbeck stayed in the dressing room at the break, as did Füllkrug. Lukas Klostermann and Havertz came into play for this. But the wake-up call went away: When Ginter couldn’t control a half-high pass from Wolf, Artem Dovbyk gratefully accepted the gift and played exemplary for Tsygankov, who scored twice. The displeasure of the fans increased by the minute. After all, another bankruptcy was spared after Havertz and Kimmich met late.
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