DORTMUND, Germany — Julian Nagelsmann is down on his luck as Germany’s head coach. It’s led them to the quarterfinals of Euro 2024, but sooner or later, he’ll need more than good fortune to take the host nation further in the competition.
It needed a terrible storm – lightning and persistent rain in Dortmund forced a 22-minute first-half suspension – and two VAR decisions in Germany’s favour to throw Denmark off its rhythm in the round-of-16 encounter, which Nagelsmann’s side eventually won 2-0 thanks to a Kai Havertz penalty and a solo goal from Jamal Musiala. Had the Danes enjoyed some of Nagelsmann’s luck and had one or both of the VAR decisions in their favour, Germany could have been shown the door at their own party and the recriminations would have already begun.
“We were favourites, so that made it difficult and we had to overcome a lot of difficulties,” Nagelsmann said after the match. “They did it and that makes me proud. The players are going back to their old memories and remembering how good they are.
“We told the team that there are still phases where we are not working at 100%. We should be more patient and wait for our good moments.”
Nagelsmann, the former RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich manager, is under contract as Germany coach until the end of the 2026 World Cup. He may have picked his best team by then.
For this game, he made the shock decision to drop Florian Wirtz from the squad and include Leroy Sane, and also resisted calls to give Germany’s goalscoring super-sub Nicolas Fulkrug a chance to play for the first time in the tournament.
“Against Switzerland, we didn’t make quick runs and didn’t have enough depth,” Nagelsmann told German broadcasters before the match, when asked about putting Wirtz on the bench. “Leroy is a player who represents both. (Wirtz) always makes good runs as well, but he wants to have the ball at his feet more and then create things with two touches.
“Leroy offers great depth with his pace. He can bring something we were missing a bit against Switzerland. We are choosing between two world-class players, so this decision can only be a good one.”
Meanwhile, Fullkrug was always unlikely to start as Nagelsmann usually opts for Havertz. It was another game in which the Arsenal forward missed several chances to score from the penalty spot.
Sane? He provided the pace Nagelsmann wanted, but he kept running down blind spots and failed to take advantage of his natural attributes. “It was his first game after a long time, but he got better in the second half,” Nagelsmann said.
The end result, in which Havertz scored, will give Nagelsmann a chance to justify his selection, but the coach now faces some big decisions before the side move on to Friday’s quarter-final against either Spain or Georgia in Stuttgart.
Barring the biggest upset at the Euros since Iceland knocked England out at Euro 2016, Spain are likely to face the Germans after beating Georgia, and that will be a tough test for Nagelsmann and his team. Germany could win that game, they could win the whole tournament, but Nagelsmann needs to find a way to kick-start his team, and it’s hard to imagine doing that without Wirtz in the lineup.
Denmark were able to enjoy dominance in midfield, and Christian Eriksen was given the time and space to find holes in Germany’s defence. If he had better players around him, the Manchester United midfielder could have caused real damage to his team.
Spain have options that Denmark don’t have so they will take advantage if they face Germany, but Denmark could have won this game as well but couldn’t because of the interruption caused by the storm and the intervention of VAR.
Joachim Andersen thought he had given Denmark the lead in the 48th minute by scoring from a goalmouth scramble, but VAR ruled the goal out after finding a partial offside. Denmark midfielder Thomas Delaney made a mistake by pointing his toe offside by millimetres, so he was ruled offside.
Technically correct, yes, but to no avail and it was a goal that would never have been challenged, let alone ruled out, without VAR. While Denmark lamented the decision, Germany took advantage, and within two minutes they had to thank VAR again when officials Stuart Attwell and David Coote urged referee Michael Oliver to review a handball by Andersen following a David Roome cross.
Again, Denmark got no benefit from this obvious infringement. It was Andersen’s nail that scratched the ball, but it registered on the snickometer that has been introduced to catch handballs. Andersen was deemed to have put his hand in an unnatural position – look at it and you’ll wonder where he was expected to put it – and Oliver agreed with his colleagues in the VAR room and pointed to the penalty spot.
“Throughout the game we worked on it and then suddenly my little foot was offside and then it was a handball,” Delaney said. “In modern football with VAR it happens very quickly.”
Havertz, who had done nothing but miss good chances earlier, scored a penalty and Germany never looked back from then on. Musiala made the game safe with a second goal in the 68th minute and the final 20 minutes were fairly ordinary for the hosts, after which they started to tighten their belts to create a deceptive image of play.
Sometimes teams and coaches get lucky. That wasn’t the case with Denmark, but Germany benefited from a slew of big decisions going in their favour. Because of this, Nagelsmann’s selection and his inability to decide on his best team becomes a debate that can be put off for another day.
However, there is no doubt that this debate will take place sooner or later.
