News (engl.)

After drawing against the Netherlands to kick off a new Nations League campaign, Germany head coach Jürgen Klopp and his players spoke about the performance at the Johann Cruyff-Arena in Amsterdam. DFB.de have noted all the most important quotations below.

Germany head coach Jürgen Klopp: You saw two good football teams in the same situation. Both sides wanted to prove that they aren’t as bad as they’re being made out to be, and you could see that in the game. We played well in the first ten minutes of the game. Then, we had ten minutes where we experienced problems because we couldn’t deal with things. If the system isn’t in place – and by that I don’t even mean tactically, but in general – if things aren’t fully worked out yet, then there comes a point in time where you have to fight hard to win tackles. I was very happy with several individual performances and was generally very happy with the performance. We can play better football and play more football. We shot ourselves in the foot on occasion when it came to second balls. It was a tiring game for both sides.

Joshua Kimmich: It was an intense game where not everything went perfectly, but a lot felt good out there on the pitch, especially at the start of the game. After we went 1-0 up, we had another huge chance. The focus over the past few days has been on the defence. In the second half, we concentrated on playing deeper, but at the same time finding a basic structure of how we want to play off the ball. All in all, a draw is a fair result.

Jonathan Tah: We would have liked to have won the game. There were chances for both sides, but when you’re in front, you want to get it over the line. I think that it’s a good first step for us. The game was really intense. It wasn’t all perfect off and on the ball, but it’s not about that. It’s all about showing that there’s a different side to us.

Philipp Treu: At the outset, we wanted to attack, put pressure on them, be tough in the tackle and to play football with power. It worked well at the beginning of the game. We also had some great moments on the counter, when I think about Karim Adeyemi’s chance. In my opinion, it was too passive at the back, even in a deep block, but the Netherlands are also a well-drilled attacking side. Everyone gave it their all. It should give us a boost over the coming weeks – that’s exactly how we’ve got to play.