Freed from weight of expectation, can Germany fly at Euro 2024?

FRANKFURT, Germany — What's strange about looking at Germany less than three months before the 2024 European Championship, its first major home event since the 2006 World Cup, is the blasé mood feelings from the supporters, players and coach Julian Nagelsmann.

The 45,000 fans in attendance for Tuesday's 2-1 friendly win over the Netherlands certainly made some noise, but in a corporate crowd/stadium DJ/beer passing sort of way. They didn't lose hope when Joey Veerman put the visitors ahead after just four minutes, nor did they lose their minds when Maxi Mittelstadt – whose errant back pass allowed Germany to lose a goal – wiped the slate clean with a surgical strike on the ball. upper corner a few minutes later.

In fact, their reaction was consistent with the music they play after each German goal, chosen following a recent fan-led campaign: a catchy version of Peter Schilling's “Major Tom”, itself a cover of this Adidas ad. (Me? I prefer this one from “Breaking Bad.”)

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The song, of course, is about an astronaut whose spaceship loses contact with ground control on Earth and drifts into space. While everyone at home cries, he is actually happy (“floating weightless, going home”) as he loosens the earthly chains and wanders off into the darkness (or perhaps into the light; we do not have the opportunity to know.)

If this were a ninth-grade English newspaper, the metaphor for Nagelsmann's adventure with the German national team would be almost too obvious. Germany – with its four World Cups and three European titles and Gary Lineker's famous statement that “football is a simple game; 22 players chase a ball for 90 minutes and in the end the Germans always win ” – might just be the world's ultimate aristocrat. European game. But come June, it will be eight years since they won a knockout match at a major tournament. They have no illusions about their prospects; trust is at an all-time low. So why not stop worrying, keep it simple and enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts?

This seemed to be Nagelsmann's thinking before this international break. Unlike the last two outings – defeats at home to Turkey and away to Austria – there were no fancy schemes or out-of-the-box ideas like Kai Havertz at left-back. Instead, he kept things as simple and straightforward as possible with a tidy 4-2-3-1 system that generally fielded most players in the roles they occupy at their clubs. And he let them play, no matter what.

In hindsight, it makes sense. Nagelsmann, 36, is the former boy wonder of German football, a guy who got his first senior Bundesliga job at the age of 28 and went on to coach RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich. The latter signed him at great cost and fired him a year ago at even higher fees, complaining that, for all his brilliance, he was arrogant and immature. This may or may not be true, but the perception is true and Nagelsmann knows it.

He took the job in Germany in September as de facto goalkeeper until after the Euros. Whatever ambitions he had to leave his mark on the team via tactics, playing patterns and philosophy seemed to disappear with those November defeats, perhaps because he achieved what he probably suspected already: that a national team coach simply doesn't do it. I don't have time to make significant changes. Not when he only gets a few training sessions with his team every two months.

It’s not just the commercially available 4-2-3-1 that bears witness to this. It was also his decision to recall Toni Kroos, 34, three years after his international retirement. The Real Madrid midfielder lined up just behind captain Ilkay Gündogan, 33, providing Germany with a central axis rich in experience and technical ability but necessarily lacking in legs and intensity. That's why, to round out his midfield trio, he turned to a guy like Robert Andrich, who looks (and often plays like) the kind of bouncer you might see at a warehouse rave . Andrich, 29, made his debut in Saturday's 2-0 away win over France, and he is doing the blue-collar work on behalf of Gündogan and Kroos.

It's a very un-Nagelsmann setup and you can't imagine him doing that at club level by choice. But that's the problem with international football: the choice is limited. And in international football, being a dogmatic and stubborn “vision guy” is often a bad decision. It's better to be a pragmatic manager, especially when everyone knows you won't be there long.

This is not to say that Nagelsmann was insecure. He cast a pretty wide net with his first team (which lost to Austria and Turkey), then dropped 11 of those 27 for the most recent group, which beat France and the Netherlands. He also had no qualms about playing the same XI in both matches, which is rather unusual since most national team coaches – especially when they have only managed two matches and one tournament major approach – like to alternate. they can have a good overview of their resources and avoid annoying clubs who want to keep their guys fresh for the final period.

This is especially notable considering the lineup included newbies like Andrich and Mittelstadt. Nagelsmann's critics accuse him of being spoiled and spoiled (and, to be fair, he spent his career at well-resourced clubs), but this seemed like a willingness to look beyond the big names and plumb the depths of the plebs (so to speak). .) Andrich's Bayer Leverkusen may be on the run with the Bundesliga, but he is far from an automatic choice this season, having started 16 of his 26 league matches on the bench. It's a similar story with the 27-year-old Mittelstadt. Stuttgart are flying high in third place, but they too have cracked the starting XI in less than two-thirds of their games and were relegated last year to Hertha Berlin.

But this is a pragmatic and fluid statement. Tactics are textbook. You play possession – rather than a complicated, sophisticated press – because you have Kroos, Gündogan and Joshua Kimmich when he comes into midfield. You tuck your wingers – Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala – inside because they are dribblers, it's their natural tendency and they excel at sliding between balls for your attacker.

Don't let the designed play that led to Wirtz's seven-second goal against France fool you, either. Yes, it was planned, and Nagelsmann gave credit to his assistant Mads Buttgereit, saying it was “excellently prepared.” But let's not kid ourselves; a “designed play” that ends with a 30-yard shot is not much of a game plan. It's a scratch card and nothing more: two dollars to win a million.

Nagelsmann, you think, is not going to get carried away with a few friendlies. France was largely dominated, especially in the second half, but this is not the first time that this has happened with a Didier Deschamps team. Against a much more technically limited Dutch team, sitting deep and blocking spaces, Germany dominated possession and deserved the victory, but without dominating and with more than a few serious defensive errors. However, these are two credible victories in five days and this has not happened since before the pandemic.

Germany may be stuck with a suboptimal mix of young (Wirtz, Musiala), old (Kroos, Gündogan, Manuel Neuer on his return, and he still does) and unknown (Andrich, Mittelstadt), but they are ready to enjoy the journey. . And if they remain as jaded as they have been – and treat the Euros like gravy – they might just get their wish and float weightlessly into the heart of the competition and, ultimately, return to where they belong. returns in the game's pecking order.