News (engl.)

After the convincing 4-0 win at home to Luxembourg, the Germany national team now sit in first place in World Cup Qualifying Group A. DFB.de gathered the reactions from head coach Julian Nagelsmann and co. after the successful night in Sinsheim.

Julian Nagelsmann: It wasn’t totally perfect. We set out to be ruthless and hungry for goals. With the dominance on display, we could have scored a few more tonight. It didn’t really help us when Luxembourg went down to ten men, as the play became a lot tighter. It was a deserved victory – one which we needed. I was really happy to see that we were able to win possession back so quickly, so that we didn’t constantly need to build up all the way out from the backline. From the 70th minute, we started to keep hold of the ball for too long, but then we began passing quicker again and we were back on the right track. Serge Gnabry today was a perfect example of how to deal with those transitional moments with his recovery sprint to help out in defence; you need that in your game, even against Luxembourg. He did that brilliantly today. The players from Bayern and Dortmund form two solid blocks on the pitch. Even though it doesn’t necessarily carry over in a national team set-up, it’s better if the players work together regularly at club level. It means that parts of the team are in full flow. Northern Ireland is going to be an uncomfortable game, because they utilise a lot of long balls which are tricky to defend. They’re very frustrating to play against as a result. They’re really difficult to press and it’ll obviously be very tough in front of the Northern Irish fans. We need to take the same cutting edge that we showed today all the way to Belfast. 

David Raum: As soon as I arrived at the stadium today, I had a good feeling that something special could happen. I actually said to the physiotherapist that I might get my first goal for the side today. When we won the free kick, I even said to Florian (Wirtz) that I’d love to pull it off. And so it was an even more incredible feeling when the ball went in. Sometimes you can just sense these things; I had a good feeling today, even when we were practicing free kicks in training. It was so important that we got up and running straight away tonight. We were aggressive in every phase of the game. That’s the kind of spirit we need to be working with, no matter the opponent. We afforded them almost no opportunities to play through us, that was our aim from the off. We could have done more with a few chances we had going forward, but all in all, we’re pleased with the win today.

Leon Goretzka: The coach was pleased with the way that we approached the game. The things that we let ourselves down on in the last international break looked a lot better tonight. We pressed with intensity and won the ball back really quickly.

Joshua Kimmich: It was crucial to get the win today, but the way we went about it was also so important. It’s a positive sign for us that we were able to implement specific principles on the night. We were really intense and aggressive from the first minute of the game and very dangerous from set pieces. It was also really important that we were rapid in transition after a loss of possession.

Serge Gnabry: After the loss in Slovakia it was clear that we needed to take a look at ourselves and really get going. We started the game with a lot of vigour tonight.