It would probably be a wise decision by the national coach if Deniz Undav remained a substitute at this World Cup. Since Saturday at the latest, some fans of the national soccer team may have found this first sentence to be a stupidity, as if Michelangelo had been given a chisel and brush for just a few minutes a day. But this sentence wouldn’t be the first if there wasn’t a clever answer after Saturday to the question of why a striker who scored three World Cup goals in his first 56 World Cup minutes should only continue to be substituted.
For every minute that Undav plays more, the likelihood that the Undav effect will become less measurable increases. Because he would have to play against defenders who did less sprinting. Because they are likely to play against a striker who has to do more sprints. As Undav on Saturday in the second group game against the Ivory Coast came on as a substitute in the 60th minute and scored in the 68th and 94th minutes to make it 1-1 and 2-1, his advantage was obvious. He was like a boxer who knocked out his opponent in the twelfth round, but didn’t get into the ring until the eighth round.
“As soon as the space opens up a bit, he’s just super smart when it comes to moving” – that’s what national coach Julian Nagelsmann said afterwards about Undav. Anyone who wanted could hear in the first part of the sentence that a different picture could emerge without these rooms. That under different circumstances Michelangelo might turn into Mia Julia.
But even in modern football, where almost everything is measured, the right feeling still decides in some situations. In a shot, in a pass, in a substitution, in a starting eleven. And because the right feeling is so important, even the wisest decision can be the wrong one.
One can only speculate what it must feel like to be Deniz Undav right now. Possibly like collecting a star in Super Mario and then being invulnerable for a few seconds. Every child knows: If you have a star, you have to use every second of it. Every football coach should know: In a tournament, sometimes you just have to coach in the moment. And that moment screams: Undav, Undav!
In order for him to play more, someone else would have to play less. Who would that be? Kai Havertz? Rather no, because the national coach believes that his moments will come in the big games and must come so that the German team can achieve something. Who then?
Jamal Musiala? See Havertz. And because Florian Wirtz is untouchable anyway, that would only leave Leroy Sané. If Undav started instead of him, Musiala would have to move to the right side for Sané. That can work. At the last European Championship, Musiala and Wirtz played alongside İlkay Gündoğan. However, it may also be possible to close things down where the attacking formation consists of four players, all of whom push into the middle. And perhaps in the end Undav will be unlucky in that he can give the team something as a substitute that Sané, Musiala and Havertz cannot give them in this role.
Doesn’t matter. On Thursday, national coach Deniz Undav should play in the third group game against Ecuador (Thursday, 10 p.m., in FAZ live ticker for the World Cupin the first and on Magenta TV) give him a chisel and a brush and see what he can do with it from the first minute. If it were more like Ballermann’s art, then that wouldn’t be a big deal, because thanks to Undav’s goals, the Germans won the group and thus had a luxury that doesn’t really exist at a World Cup: a game in which nothing is at stake.
