In the Georgian Black Sea city of Batumi, several German football dreams were shattered on Wednesday evening. The U21 internationals won’t be European champions like their predecessors two years ago, and they won’t be at next year’s Olympics in Paris either. To do that, they would have had to get into the semi-finals of the European Championship, but they didn’t even make it into the quarter-finals in a preliminary round group that was considered very advantageous.
After a 1-1 draw against Israel and a 1-2 defeat against the Czech Republic, the completely empty German juniors also lost their third group game against England 0-2 (0-2) and have to fly home again after just seven days of the tournament. Especially this third game against Englishmen who had already qualified and changed eight positions was a real disappointment. Shortly before kick-off, DFB sports director Rudi Völler said on Sat1 about the first two German games: “You had the feeling that there was a little more to it.” But after the third game, the early end of the tournament turned out to be absolutely justified. Völler already has two construction sites with the troubled senior national team and the disappointing U21s.
In the second half, the German team accepts their fate
For the third time in the third tournament appearance, the overly cautious German team came into play very badly. For the third time she fell 0-1 behind. Aston Villa’s Cameron Archer delivered a through ball in the 4th minute between German central defenders Yann Aurel Bisseck and Marton Dardai to make it 1-0 for his team. The German U21s played much too passively, without faith, for a team that wanted to use their last and anyway minimal quarter-final chance with the courage of desperation and a certain risk. That had been her problem all tournament. She lacked pace and body language. When Harvey Elliott from Liverpool scored in the 21st minute to make it 2-0, the German end was almost decided. In the second half, the unnerved team showed no more will.
Völler described the U21s in Batumi as a “reflection” of the senior national team. U21 coach Antonio Di Salvo said after his first tournament as head coach: “We all had imagined it very differently.” His team was “not consistent enough” in all three games. He looked helpless. Schalke midfielder Tom Krauss had to admit: “We didn’t have the quality in this tournament.”
“We all imagined it completely differently”: Antonio Di Salvo (left) fails in his debut as U21 head coach in the preliminary round, his opposite number Lee Carsley applauds his team for the comfortable group victory.
(Photo: Sebastian Kahnert/dpa)
Of course, Di Salvo didn’t have too many variations over the course of the tournament. Eight players have been in the starting line-up each time: Freiburg goalkeeper Noah Atubolu; in defense of Stuttgart’s Josha Vagnoman, Yann Aurel Bisseck of Aarhus GF and Schalke’s Henning Matriciani; in midfield Freiburg’s Yannik Keitel, Schalke’s Tom Krauss and Hoffenheim’s Angelo Stiller as well as Kevin Schade from FC Brentford on the offensive right. Out of necessity, someone else played in the problematic center forward position: first Dortmund’s Youssoufa Moukoko, and when he was injured, Herthan’s Jessic Ngankam in the second game and Mainz’s Nelson Weiper in the third. Nobody scored a goal.
After no German team had recently qualified for the U20 World Cup in Argentina, the loss in the preliminary round at the U21 European Championship means another setback for German youth work. Under Di Salvo’s predecessor Stefan Kuntz, U21 teams had previously reached the European Championship final three times in a row and won the title in 2017 and 2021. Kuntz joined the senior Turkish national team as head coach in autumn 2021. His long-time assistant Di Salvo took over the top post at the U21s.
Even before the Kuntz era, the U21s had been successful. Horst Hrubesch was responsible for this as coach, who led his teams to the European Championship title in 2009 and to Olympic silver in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. Other U21 coaches were less successful: Uli Stielike in 2004 at the European Championships at home, then Dieter Eilts and now Rainer Adrion. Under Di Salvo, a German U21 was eliminated after the preliminary round for the first time since 2013.
However, the conditions were not ideal either: the players Jamal Musiala, Florian Wirtz and Malick Thiaw had already been promoted to the senior national team, Jonathan Burkardt, Ansgar Knauff, Felix Nmecha, Armel Bella-Kotchap, Patrick Osterhage, Jan Thielmann and Jordan Beyer was injured. Maybe more would have been possible with these players.