Status: 05.09.2021 11:24 p.m.
Everything that the German team missed against Liechtenstein has now been made up for against Armenia. The fast-paced peat festival thrilled the fans in Stuttgart – and showed exactly what Hansi Flick had asked for.
In the 6-0 (4-0) match against the Armenians who had previously been leading in Group J, the first half was a football festival that the DFB team has not shown in a long time. Right from the start the impression arose that Flick had shown his protégés significantly more deficits internally after the embarrassing 2-0 win against Liechtenstein than he had publicly admitted.
Six changes in the starting XI
The starting line-up alone was informative, and Flick had switched to six positions. And the direction was clear: Tempo should be on the pitch, on the offensive with the outstanding Leroy Sané, Serge Gnabry and Timo Werner, in the midfield with the game accelerator Leon Goretzka and on the defensive flanks with the repeatedly marching Jonas Hofmann and Thilo Kehrer.
Gnabry consistently in the end
It would have been interesting what Joachim Löw would have thought in view of this game presentation: The entire team was constantly moving, Sané not only conjured up front, but also chased lost balls to his own baseline. In addition, there were not only the repeatedly required runs into the depths, but that is exactly where the passes finally came.
Even the 1-0 was exemplary of Flick’s ideal: The ball came to Goretzka via Sané and Gnabry, who lifted him with a contact over the defense – into the barrel of Gnabry, who completed the corner perfectly (5th). Before the 2-0 after a quarter of an hour, Sané had played the defense dizzy, then Marco Reus crossed in front of the goal, and Gnabry was there again.
Werner hangs up for Reus
The Armenians hardly ever crossed the middle line because the Germans kept the pressure high and were greedy for more goals. Sané failed in the 22nd minute with a long-range shot on the lower edge of the bar, then Reus made the 3-0 (35th) after brilliant preparatory work Gnabry and Werner and Werner himself 4-0 after a chip pass from Joshua Kimmich and a header from Goretzka ( 44.) after.
The second round was then increasingly under the newfangled term “load control”, Flick took his best off the field after an hour with Gnabry and Sané and later helped Karim Adeyemi and David Raum to their international debuts.
Hofmann does self-promotion
The move forward was somewhat curbed by the many changes, but the DFB team remained hard-working and snappy. Hofmann used the second 45 minutes for self-promotion in the position that he has never played in his home club Mönchengladbach.
In the 51st minute he hit from 22 meters after a badly defended corner to make it 5-0, ten minutes later Varazdat cleared Haroyan Hofmann’s low shot for his beaten keeper on the goal line.
The German team saved a dream goal until stoppage time. Hofmann and Florian Wirtz pushed the ball towards the penalty area at top speed, then Adeyemi played one-two with Wirtz and completed a spectacular and sometimes thrilling football evening to make it 6-0.
“It was the next step”
Hansi Flick then summed up the game in a good mood: “I liked it a lot. It was the next step we took. We have tremendous quality, you can see that today. But it is important that you deliver when you do it counts. We saw that today. The team can be happy with their performance, but we have to concentrate on the next game against Iceland on Wednesday. “
Serge Gnabry analyzed: “Today the chances were converted much better. We were good in front of the goal, we could have done even more. We are taking the euphoria with us to Iceland to score points there.” Leon Goretzka was of the same opinion: “It was a completely different game today. We had big plans, we had imagined the start under Hansi as we did today. We implemented a lot of what we set out to do. We wanted to play against Iceland we repeat this performance. It’s about consistently performing at a high level again. ”
Source: sportschau.de