If you want to become world champion, you also have to be lucky. The German national soccer team was lucky in their opening game. Not because she won against Curaçao. Because she played against Curaçao.
This World Cup, which is so big that even the 82nd in the world rankings can play, started with a German 7-1 victory. And because for the first time eight third-placed teams in the group will advance to the knockout round, the seven goals make it very likely that this tournament will have a different outcome from a German perspective than in 2018 and 2022.
There are some similarities between the World Cup preliminary round in Russia and the World Cup preliminary round in Qatar. But contrary to what has been said in these weeks, perhaps the most important thing was neither the political nor the atmospheric disruption (even if everything is connected to everything else), but the result of the first game, which ended in defeat for the Germans. 2018 against Mexico, 2022 against Japan.
The Germans will no longer have that much space
She has such an opponent National team on Sunday in the stadium in Houston. That was important. Because after these 90 minutes, despite the seven goals, it cannot be said with complete conviction that they would have won this first game if the opponent had not been Curaçao, but the Ivory Coast or Ecuador.
The Germans won’t have as much space against Ecuador as Felix Nmecha and Florian Wirtz had in the sixth minute for their one-two before making it 1-0. And if they didn’t always act cleverly against the Curaçao strikers (like Nico Schlotterbeck before the 1-1 draw in the 21st minute), how are they supposed to do against the Ivory Coast strikers?
After Schlotterbeck made it 2-1 – it took a corner in the 38th minute, but that shouldn’t be a criticism because standard situations are an important stylistic device in modern football – you then saw the gap that exists between number nine and number 82 in the world rankings. With six goals it was represented realistically. And so we could come to this conclusion: Through this opening game against this opening opponent, the Germans primarily gained time.
They had 90 minutes in which goalkeeper Manuel Neuer played with the team for the first time and in which he was able to coordinate with central defenders Tah and Schlotterbeck under competitive conditions. In which the playmaker Jamal Musiala was able to continue practicing snaking, even if, despite his goal to make it 4-1, in some situations it still didn’t look like the Musiala snaking, but more like the snake snaking on an old Nokia.
These 90 minutes will now be followed by five days in which the team and coach can prepare for the game against Ivory Coast next Saturday with an initial feeling of happiness. And even if they didn’t need any luck against Curaçao in the end, after the first game it can be said that a little bit of luck was already used up.
