A defeat would have made a for a much bigger story, but even German newspaper reporters seemed relieved that Joachim Löw’s reshuffled team won 3-2 in Amsterdam on Sunday night. The tone of the match reports was one of cautious optimism and forward-looking. By general consensus, the crisis of 2018 was finally over and the post-World Cup future had last begun. The away win against their old rivals the Netherlands could be seen as “the birth of a new team” Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote.
There was indeed much to commend about the performance, even if the result flattered the visitors somewhat. Germany had adopted a 3-4-3 formation that was both solid and flexible before becoming severely strained after the break. The Bundestrainer’s controversial decision to axe the veteran trio of Mats Hummels, Jerome Boateng and Thomas Müller was – at least partially – vindicated. And what’s more, the strike-partnership of Leroy Sane and Serge Gnabry had given the visitors a dynamism and directness that had been sorely missed in Russia.
Gnabry does VVD then smacks a curler in to the top corner#NEDGER pic.twitter.com/J56K0cDj9Z
— (@grimtweets3) March 24, 2019
It was vital for Löw to buy himself and his squad time to keep growing into a fully-formed, competitive unit. There won’t be a more difficult competitive fixture until the start of Euro 2020 which made Sunday’s successful trip all the more valuable. But perhaps more importantly, the game put recent talks of German football needing another “reboot” into perspective. The Nationalmannschaft’s Nations League travails and the Bundesliga’s inglorious 0/3 rating after three Champions League ties against Premier League sides had led to a lot of muddled, overblown pieces about fundamental problems in game.
On the club side, Bayern’s financial strength is such that the noticeable regression in quality can easily be reversed, courtesy of better coaching and more investment. Schalke don’t have realistic hopes of being among the best eight teams in Europe, and Dortmund, a new, immature team, especially at the back, will improve and be better equipped next year. The bigger concern is German clubs’ serial underachievement in the more egalitarian Europa League, but anyone who’s seen more than a handful games of the league this season would agree that the general level of play has improved compared to the last couple of seasons, as more clubs have moved beyond the one-dimensional pressing game blueprint designed to disrupt and destroy. Unlike in 2000, when the top German clubs were very competitive in Europe but mostly playing outdated football, there’s simply no reason to suggest that a complete tactical overhaul is necessary. On the contrary: the success of German coaches abroad would suggest that there’s more know-how than ever before, even if the best coaches don’t work in Germany at the moment.
Many people working at the clubs nevertheless agree that better youth coaching is mandatory. But that warning, too, must be seen in context. Germany have a very expensive, highly advanced set-up for the harnessing of talent, and the situation is wholly incomparable to that of the dark days at the turn of the century when academies didn’t exist and Bundesliga managers were extremely reluctant to play German youngsters. What’s now needed are new ideas and more individualised coaching – but these are relatively minor concerns when you have the numbers and wherewithal to tweak the system fairly rapidly. Ignore the doomsayers: a country of 80 million people will continue to produce 20 to 30 very good players for every cycle of four years or so. That’s enough to be competitive in international football, where most countries have weaknesses and the overall level of ability is not a patch on Champions League teams.
Löw’s Germany, by contrast, were so good for much of this decade that they could have feasibly competed for, if not won, Europe’s top club competition. Some regression or at the very least a transition period was to expected and shouldn’t be confused for an existential crisis. The main problem of the last few months was not one of talent but of its mismanagement: Löw, having won the Confed Cup with a young and then rather modest team, failed with a very good squad in Russia and failed again, in terms of results at least, with a pretty good squad in the Nations League.
Leaving out Hummels – Boateng and Müller had already lost their starting place in the autumn – cannot be construed as a drastic change in personnel, nor was one necessary. As the second half showed, the tactical development into a coherent unit will take a lot more time but no one should be shocked that this unfinished team were just about good enough to beat a severely over-hyped Dutch team. They’re still Germany: pretty decent, even when they’re not great.
A £10 bet on Germany to win Euro 2020 returns £80
