The yellow wall is standing. But it’s not just this one yellow wall, there are many yellow walls that surround the players of the German national soccer team as they enter this stadium on Thursday. And because East Rutherford isn’t Dortmund, these yellow walls shouldn’t seem as protective to you as the Limes, but rather as threatening as the walls in a haunted house that suddenly get closer and closer and closer.
As the players from Germany and Ecuador line up for their third and final preliminary round game of this World Cup, you can see and hear that Sebastián Beccacece may not have exaggerated after all. It sounded exaggerated when the Argentinian coach of the Ecuadorians said the day before that 55,000 of his team’s supporters would be in the stadium.
Are they that many? In the ninth minute of the game, the stadium becomes as loud as if it were them. A mistake by Felix Nmecha, who cannot control the ball, is followed by a shot by Nilson Angulos. And as the ball on Manuel Neuer Flying past the German goal, the Ecuadorians have achieved what they failed to do in the preliminary round against Ivory Coast and even against Curaçao.
The German team’s great luck: after the first Ecuadorian goal in this tournament, it’s not 0:1, it’s 1:1.
Seven minutes earlier, German midfielder Aleksandar Pavlović stretched his foot high into the air looking at the ball in the Ecuadorian penalty area and not only came dangerously close to the face of his opponent Pedro Vite, but hit it. Pavlović then passes to Florian Wirtz and Wirtz passes to Leroy Sané, who shoots the ball flat with his left foot into the left corner of the goal. The Ecuadorians are waiting for a whistle, everyone is waiting for a whistle. But Tori Penso doesn’t whistle. The referee as a ghost driver.
In the 78th minute the Germans ran out of luck. And Manuel Neuer the aura. Corner kick for Ecuador. When Vite shoots the ball into the middle and substitute Kevin Rodríguez extends it with his head, striker Gonzalo Plata doesn’t care that the best goalkeeper in the history of the game has already stretched out his hands to catch the ball. Plata intervenes with her foot. 2:1. This is how the game ends for Ecuador, this is how the preliminary round ends for Germany. And because the victories against Curaçao and the Ivory Coast (in stoppage time) also had some happy aspects, one can say before the round of 16 on Monday: the last impression is not the wrong one.
On Thursday, the German team will play with the line-up that national coach Julian Nagelsmann already indicated on Wednesday. With Antonio Rüdiger for Nico Schlotterbeck and with David Raum for Nathaniel Brown. But without Deniz Undav.
In the 58th minute, the German fans in the stadium, who are quite a few, shout his name. So loud that you can hear it through the glass panes of the press boxes. When Undav comes on for Kai Havertz, the score is still 1-1.
What else happened up until then? Nagelsmann’s team temporarily retreated into their own half of the field. That fits the starting point of this game. As group winners, the Germans are already safely in the knockout round, which the Ecuadorians still want to get to and therefore have to win. But that doesn’t fit with the national coach’s wish for his team to stay in the flow.
You have to say: She hardly allowed any chances to score after the 1-1 draw. But you also have to say: With a few exceptions – a header from Havertz in the 25th minute, a shot from Jamal Musiala in the 35th minute – they hardly had any chances to score after the 1-0 lead. And so you can say the same thing about the first half against Ecuador as you could about the first half against Ivory Coast: that the team from Germany wasn’t the better.
The national coach changes for the first time during the half-time break. He brings on Angelo Stiller for Aleksandar Pavlović, who, like against Ivory Coast, failed to find a rhythm and was shown a yellow card towards the end of the first half. When Nmecha passes into the penalty area in the 47th minute and Havertz falls there after a challenge, the referee blows her whistle: penalty for Germany. But she looks at the scene again and sees that Sané had hit his opponent in the ankle shortly beforehand. Free kick for Ecuador instead of a penalty for Germany. The luck seems to have run out.
Then comes Undav, the lucky charm, who will no longer bring luck in this game. Maybe it can’t bring luck because there’s an eleven on the pitch who can’t force it. Joshua Kimmich, the player who is otherwise never replaced, was also replaced with Havertz. Later, Maximilian Beier (for Wirtz) and Pascal Groß (for Nmecha) will also be able to play at this World Cup for the first time. You notice how the good ideas are becoming fewer and fewer and the errors are increasing. In the 73rd minute, Antonio Rüdiger saved with good physical effort after Neuer had the ball stolen away from his hands by his central defender Jonathan Tah. By then the luck will run out.
Five minutes later, Ecuador made it 2-1. The yellow walls shake. That’s a fitting final image: because it really seems like the walls are getting threateningly close to the German team in this tournament.
