Julian Nagelsmann hammered home the need for commitment from the DFB after their 2-1 defeat to Portugal. Germany gave away the lead and lost the chance to fight for a trophy in front of their fans in Munich. Despite a spate of injuries, the manager made clear he needed “everyone on the pitch to be at 100%”, calling into question the intensity and focus of the players across the ninety minutes.
- ‘We have to give 100%’
After the optimism of the Euros last year, the DFB were in with a shout of fighting for silverware in front of their fans at the Allianz Arena. To lose the lead and fall short is a bitter blow to the team.
“There is great disappointment in the team. I do not really feel like hitting out like that because I know what the team is giving and what development steps, they or have taken in the last few months.”
It is a frustrating result for the Germans, who came short of their standards under the 37-year-old.
“I think that the key is that we have to give 100%, then we can keep up with those top nations, the top football nations, I think we sometimes are even better because then we have something very special.”
They lacked several key figures for this game. Antonio Rudiger and Nico Schlotterbeck sat out with knee injuries. A hamstring issue ruled out Jamal Musiala and Kai Havertz was not called on to ease him back into action from his three month layoff with a hamstring tear: but even with all of those mitigating circumstances, Nagelsmann said that his squad should have given more on the night.
“Independent of the quality of individual players today, we need everyone on the pitch to be at 100%. If we have players who aren’t 100%, the players have to answer that question themselves. Portugal has a lot of good subs. If we were at 100%, I don’t know if we’d win but we didn’t and we didn’t win.”
The captain of the camp, Joshua Kimmich, conveyed his fatigue before the start of the match. He cited the Club World Cup and extra fixtures in European competition with the league phase as two factors that have left an extra load on players on national duty. Nagelsmann has no intent of running his favourites into the ground as he cares more for the quality of the display he sees on the pitch.
“At the end of a long season before the Club World Cup, it’s not easy psychologically, but it’s a great way to mature and prove ourselves. Our next game is World Cup qualification, and that says it all. I’m completely detached from the outcome of the game. The way in which it is done is very important.”
The Nations League fixtures are coming off the back of nine and a half months of draining physical and mental effort at club level. Now, there is a chance for the manager to observe what other options in the squad can do in his system as he acknowledged his nonchalance about the third place playoff.
“I am less concerned about third place. I’d rather see a top game and we come fourth than us play a bad game and come third. We have to use games to develop. If you play your best, you can win.”
One of the men who earned an opportunity out of the state of the squad is Nick Woltemade. The striker scored 12 goals in the Bundesliga and five in five in the DFB Pokal on the way to the first title in his career. A debut was his reward, and he put on a decent display in the eyes of the manager.
“For the first game, it was okay. I don’t want to judge too much. There are so many things going on for the player, especially with the upcoming U21 European Championship and so on. He did a good job. He made good use of 60 minutes as an international player. We’ll give him to the Under 21 team.”
- ‘We try to give them something easy to implement’
Novel ideas are always a topic of conversation around Nagelsmann. As Portugal turned around the game in five minutes, his game management came under fire. But he spoke highly of the Seleção.
“Vitinha had a lot of influence on games, and Francisco Conceicao scored, and with his low centre of gravity, he was difficult for us to defend. We made two pretty serious tactical errors, which led to the goals, and then the dynamic of the game completely shifted. We didn’t deserve to be in the final.”
Young legs brought more crispness and quality on the ball, but an old head was wily enough to decide the duel. Cristiano Ronaldo converted from close range to reach a tally of 137 goals for his country. The German manager does not know Ronaldo well but praised the player for his tireless devotion.
“At 40, he still has a very good body and is putting everything into it, from sleep, nutrition, to training intensity, to be able to still play at 40. He’s aware not everything works the way it did when he was 30 years old, but I think that’s normal. And he still scored a goal and also had a lot of good movements.”
Eventually, he explained the thinking behind his substitutions. He used the back five from the two-legged tie with Italy, making straight swaps at left wing-back and in the front three after an hour.
“It is also my job to evaluate performance, see players out there who can bring something in and one of the requirements of my job is to make substitutions and we decided to do that with Niclas Füllkrug and Robin Gosens. They are two players who bring energy into the team, and we were sleepy, not at 100% and we wanted to bring in a bit of energy. Serge Gnabry was simply a swap for Leroy Sane.”
He then talked about why he liked working with a back five as the manager of the DFB. He began his stint with a 4-2-3-1 formation, trying to integrate Musiala and Wirtz into the same starting eleven. As time has passed, he saw that defensive dilemmas on the field demanded new tactical ideas as solutions.
“The opponent is playing in 3151 and pushed a lot of their personnel into the last line. Against Mexico and in subsequent games, we had a few problems with certain balls into the back four. We know that Portugal plays a lot of these balls, so we simply tried to cover the width a bit more.”
No matter what layout he picked, Nagelsmann knows that the players’ performance matters the most.
“What I’ve always disliked as a coach are system discussions. You have to fill a basic formation with life. If the way that you perform on the pitch is not top notch, then the basic order will look bad too.”
He also understands that the lack of time does not allow him to be too inventive in the national camp.
“Given the time constraints, we try to give the players something that is relatively easy to implement and something that we have kept the same for the last few months, which we have done very well.”