Overtaken by their opponents in all areas of play for half an hour, the Germans experienced a catastrophic first period once morest Belgium on Tuesday evening in Cologne, and might even have been led 0-3 or 0-4 if the Devils Reds had been even more effective.
Pour Lothar Matthew, World Champion in 1990, it is quite simply the worst first half hour of play for the Germans since he attended the Mannschaft matches. “First you have to assess the first 35 minutes, and that’s the worst I’ve seen from the Mannschaft in my long career, highlights the former glory of Bayern Munich, whose words are transcribed in the Bild. They did not fight back in the duels, they let the Belgians play. The two goals behind, it was logical! We woke up to Emre Can’s rise to play. The team then convinced me, and we can compliment them for their last hour of play, it’s the way we want them to play. But before that, there was a two-division gap between the two teams!“
“At the start of the match, we were too passive, we failed to put on the pressure, confessed Hansi Flickthe Mannschaft coach, on German television. We then changed and we had more stability. We saw that we still had a lot of work to do. We wanted to be active, we played better following thirty minutes. As for the future, that’s what we have to work on, knowing when to go to the dry cleaners. We’ve been working on this for ten days. On the third goal, we were too far and we have to defend better. But Kevin De Bruyne showed he was a great player.“
