Voices about the game
Germany vs Scotland: “It was about believing in ourselves”
Opened the opening match of the European Football Championship with their goals: Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala
© Sven Hoppe / DPA
First a gala performance, then the opposing team scored. Overall, the DFB team is very satisfied, but Nagelsmann puts the brakes on their euphoria.
“The myth of the tournament team is being revived,” said ZDF commentator Oliver Schmidt, summing up the national team’s opening match immediately after the final whistle. “This radical cure of Julian Nagelsmann finds his first highlight today in his first competitive match.” And of course the players of the German team were also very happy with the 5:1. But Julian Nagelsmann remained reserved.
The national coach was satisfied. However, a “perfect start” was not the headline he would write about this game. “It was about believing in ourselves.” The beginning was important: “The first 20 minutes were impressive, I think. Lots of power, lots of aggression, lots of counter-pressing. We scored two very good goals to start with.” Nagelsmann was also satisfied that so many players were involved in the goals. “It’s really valuable that not just one person gets the flowers today, but that we can spread the word.”
“Hungary is hard to grasp”
Nagelsmann continued to stress that he was “not a warning voice”, but he did not want to talk about euphoria. “The boys know that it was a very good first step. A first step that we needed to follow up with a second one and we will try that on Wednesday.” And Nagelsmann immediately showed respect for the task, because Hungary “are an unpleasant team, difficult to tackle”.
The German captain was a little more euphoric than his coach: “The start is of course exactly what we wanted,” said İlkay Gündoğan after the game. “It’s exactly this atmosphere in the stadium, the euphoria with our own fans, that’s exactly what we need to go far.”
Scotland captain: The Germans “were simply better”
The analysis by Scotland captain Andy Robertson mirrors this: “In the first half we obviously had a plan, but we didn’t put it into practice as we had imagined. The Germans were simply better than us. It became difficult in the second half.” ZDF co-commentator Christoph Kramer also found that “They made it really easy for us.”
The only good news is that German captain İlkay Gündoğan apparently did not suffer a serious injury in the red card foul at the end of the first half. “The ligaments are stable.”
Niclas Füllkrug: “We didn’t let up after any goal”
Goal scorers Jamal Musiala and Niclas Füllkrug were also happy with the game. “That was a good start,” said Musiala. “We’re not going to let it go to our heads now – and we’ll give it our all again on Wednesday.” And Niclas Füllkrug added: “We didn’t let up after a single goal. Then it was a completely deserved victory over 90 minutes.” When asked about the fans, Füllkrug said: “You could definitely tell that things were different again.”