Germany faced Portugal in the semi-finals of the UEFA Nations League. A contest where Germany lacked its crucial players in Bayern Munich star Jamal Musiala, Real Madrid’s Antonio Rüdiger and Arsenal FC’s Kai Havertz, was always going to be difficult. However, Ronaldo’s Portugal progress to the final with a 2-1 win, by dint of an extraordinary second half showing. Here are the observations from the game.

A tale of two halves

Germany started the game fielding an odd 3-4-2-1, a formation never seen before, yet a fairly simple one at it. Owing to the lack of personnel, manager Julian Nagelsmann opted for a formation that helps utilize the existing personnel in the best possible way.

The first half was fairly even, with both Germany and Portugal making their attempts. Germany emerged from the first half with a slight edge, having had more promising attacking movements. Contrastingly, Florian Wirtz had a particularly poor first half, as he found himself constantly swarmed by red shirts. The Portuguese attack, despite its clear quality, could not make anything out of the first 45. Inevitably, both teams struggled with the same trouble, not being able to finish.

And then, the second half happened.

At the 47th minute, Nick Woltemade made a run past multiple defenders, passed the ball to Joshua Kimmich, who located a perfectly positioned Florian Wirtz at point-blank range from the net. Wirtz guided the ball to the back of the net with what was a perfectly delicate singular touch. For a second there, it looked like Germany were winning this. But, this could not have been further from reality. Portugal managed to turn the game around and score twice before the final whistle.

There went into this a multitude of factors, such as the substitutions, which simply did not hit the mark. There were multiple instances wherein Germany simply did not have the personnel with sufficient prowess to respond appropriately. Both Maximilian Mittelstädt and Nick Woltemade had a rather mediocre game and yet, their substitutions with Robin Gosens and Niclas Füllkrug did not bear the results expected. Then happened the blunder — Serge Gnabry in for Leroy Sané, essentially blunting the entire attack.

Portugal’s substitutions of Francisco Conceição, Nelson Semedo and Vitinha capsized the German ship even before it could hope to sail halfway. Conceição scored a gorgeous solo goal, arguably the best goal of the game with an assist from Ruben Dias This was followed by the talisman Ronaldo scoring a fantastic team goal courtesy of an unselfish pass from Nuno Mendes within merely 5 minutes. Further attempts at bringing on Karim Adeyemi and Felix Nmecha bore no fruit.

However, what Nagelsmann did right was retaining Robin Koch, who had a phenomenal game tonight.

Some unexpected resurgences

While Florian Wirtz was busy being absolutely incapacitated by the ‘man marking’, three players whose price tags together could potentially be a 150 million were making an unexpected comeback.

Joshua Kimmich had an absolutely brilliant game. Playing in a right wing-back position seemed to have unlocked his full range of motion as he led the midfield and defense, making the last minute adjustments necessary. He covered for Jonathan Tah and Co.’s mistakes. That overhead shot he made to clear the ball, which then was further cleared by Marc-André ter Stegen was a work of art. His corner kicks still induce fans tears, but his overall performance was fantastic.

Leon Goretzka is intent on making his die Mannschaft resurgence, as was evident in the Italy game and this match as well. He was quiet, reliable and barely had any error to his game.

The biggest shock of the night was however, Marc-Andre ter Stegen. He may not be a sweeper keeper, or very good at his footwork, but what makes him stand out are his otherworldly reflexes. One noteworthy save was the double save he made towards the end, preventing Ronaldo from scoring. His instinctive dash to the left to deny the second shot was simply unbelievable. Ter Stegen may not have played at goal for the NT for years now, yet he seems to be making a decent argument for himself with this game.

I beg to dream and differ from our poorly refereed lives

No one does time wasting like the Portuguese. And the referees could not care less.

Subpar refereeing isn’t new to Germany or Bayern Munich. Tonight’s refereeing was reflective of this — it made the watch frustrating, and additionally, played at least a minor role in the final score line too.

Many may disagree with the latter, but fairer officiation would have definitely closed the gap and helped Germany at least level out at 2-2.

Does Germany even have reliable attackers? (Not) finishing off with Woe-ltemade among other woes

The desperate lack of attacking manpower has certainly held Germany back, but one needs to pay particular attention to Nick Woltemade. The young striker had a rough night and, subsequently, was subbed off early in the second half. He barely received the ball, but further seemed to struggle to hold the ball or position himself appropriately. Barring the Wirtz goal which he initiated, he had too little going on. Wirtz too had a rather uninspired outing. Adeyemi’s substitution was simply not enough to add the missing factor to the German team.

The unreliability up front is an issue that has plagued Germany for too long. The presence of experienced figures like Leroy Sané and Niclas Füllkrug still does not cut it, as yet again, the attack delivers an inadequate performance. It is perhaps, once again, back to the drawing board for Julian Nagelsmann, who will somehow have to figure out how to tackle the severe lack of urgency and the poor progress in the final third before Germany faces bigger fish soon enough.

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