Nick Woltemade’s first international goal condemned Northern Ireland to a 1-0 World Cup qualifying defeat to Germany at Windsor Park.
Newcastle’s £69m forward turned in David Raum’s 31st-minute corner with the back of his shoulder to settle a hard-fought contest in which Michael O’Neill’s young side showed no fear against their illustrious opponents on the night of his 100th game in charge.
But O’Neill was left frustrated after the full-time whistle, with just two minutes of additional time added on. When asked if the refereeing performance frustrated him, he said: “It did, very much so. Over fussy and I felt that to give two minutes at the end of the game is incredible really with the amount of substitutions alone and stoppages.
“I thought Germany were over dramatic when they went down as well and a lot of time wasting and that side of things.
“I’m not going to go into it but we weren’t happy with the referee’s performance on the night, let’s be honest. I thought he was over fussy.
“We are disappointed with the performance of the officials.”
How Germany overcame valiant Northern Ireland
Julian Nagelsmann spent Sunday insisting he had meant no disrespect to Northern Ireland when discussing their “long ball” tactics last month, but the hosts went toe to toe with Germany and saw a Daniel Ballard strike chalked off for offside.
All the same, a seven-game unbeaten run at Windsor Park ended, as an 11th straight loss to the Germans left Northern Ireland three points behind both Germany and Slovakia going into the final qualifiers next month. Their safety net of a potential qualifying play-off via the Nations League may yet be needed.
But O’Neill is likely to take heart from another valiant display from a side whose average age at kick-off was under 25. Brodie Spencer replaced the suspended Conor Bradley in the only change from Friday’s 2-0 win over Slovakia.
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Northern Ireland’s young side were unable to hold off Germany’s experience
Northern Ireland were struggling to get out of their half in the early exchanges but out of nowhere had the ball in the net in the 14th minute before an offside flag curtailed celebrations.
Ballard lashed home a loose ball after both Paddy McNair and Jamie Reid failed to connect properly on Bailey Peacock-Farrell’s long free-kick into the box, but McNair was offside when Ballard got the initial flick-on.
Germany slowly regained the upper hand, then gained the lead with their 50th ever goal against Northern Ireland. Woltemade leapt to meet Raum’s corner, and the ball struck him on the back of his shoulder to beat Peacock-Farrell, the goal standing after a VAR check for handball.
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Nick Woltemade’s first international goal proved to be enough for Germany
Reid should have done better late in the half after Ethan Galbraith cut into the box from the left but, stretching, the Stevenage man shot over, while Ali McCann sent a late strike narrowly wide. In between, Galbraith was booked for fouling Aleksandar Pavlovic, ruling him out of next month’s trip to Slovakia.
Karim Adeyemi should have doubled Germany’s lead less than two minutes into the second half but, clean through on goal, bent his shot the wrong side of Peacock-Farrell’s right-hand post.
Northern Ireland, refreshed up top as Josh Magennis replaced Reid at the break, kept battling, with Shea Charles testing Oliver Baumann from a tight angle before Galbraith rippled the side-netting with a low strike.
At the other end, Peacock-Farrell did well to keep out a deflected strike from Serge Gnabry.
Last month in Cologne, Northern Ireland battled well for 70 minutes but then conceded two late goals as they could not cope with the strength of Germany’s bench in a 3-1 defeat.
This time, they kept up the fight to the end. Galbraith shot narrowly over in the 85th minute and substitute Callum Marshall stung the palms of Baumann three minutes later, but there was no way back.
O’Neill: ‘Freak’ goal decided match
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Northern Ireland boss Michael O’Neill was left frustrated by the refereeing performance
Northern Ireland boss Michael O’Neill speaking to the BBC:
“I thought the players gave everything and I thought first half we lacked a bit of belief with the ball, but we were in the game, we weren’t conceding many chances.
“The goal is a freak goal, it comes off the player’s shoulder and ends up in the net. We should have defended it better and we have been good in corners against, but we didn’t do it as good as we could have done.
“Second half we were well in the game. It was the type of game that we had to go ahead, obviously we [thought we had] took the lead, and it was disallowed for offside and, again, we could do better in that situation.”