1:1 against Switzerland: Füllkrug heads Germany to group victory

Die deutschen Fußballnationalspieler schossen sich im Stadion in Frankfurt für das dritte Vorrundenspiel der Europameisterschaft noch ein, als es den ersten von ihnen erwischte. Es war Joshua Kimmich, der Rechtsverteidiger, der den Ball um 20.37 Uhr beim Warmmachen gerade in den Strafraum geflankt hatte und danach sofort auf den Boden gefallen war – und damit auf den Rasen, der dafür, dass er dann doch nur ein Rasen ist, schon am Tag vor dem Spiel ein großes Thema gewesen war.

„Sehr schmierig, sehr weich“, so hatte der Bundestrainer persönlich den Rasen in Frankfurt, der mitten in der Saison im Anschluss an das American-Football-Spiel dort ausgetauscht worden war, am Samstagabend in der Pressekonferenz beschrieben. Doch am späten Sonntagabend stand dann fest, dass Julian Nagelsmanns Mannschaft in dem Stadion fast auf ganz andere Art und Weise ausgerutscht wäre.

In ihrem dritten EM-Spiel hat die deutsche Mannschaft die erste Niederlage erst durch ein Tor von Niclas Füllkrug in der Nachspielzeit abgewendet und durch das 1:1 gegen die Schweiz den Gruppensieg erobert. Damit spielt sie am kommenden Samstag in Dortmund gegen den Zweiten der Gruppe C (England, Dänemark, Slowenien oder Serbien). Und dennoch: Das Duell mit der Schweiz sollte eine willkommene Erinnerung daran sein, was dieser deutschen Mannschaft passieren kann, wenn ein guter Gegner gut auf sie eingestellt ist.

When Murat Yakin, the Swiss national coach, took on the German team in recent days, he started with a real and a perceived advantage. On the one hand, he was the first coach to be allowed to dissect and analyze two of the Germans' tournament games, the 5-1 win against Scotland and the 2-0 win against Hungary. A real advantage.

On the other hand, he was also the third coach who could assume with great certainty which starting line-up the Germans would field. A supposed advantage.

Nagelsmann did not change his starting eleven. The national coach also relied on those who had to be careful with a view to the round of 16: central defenders Jonathan Tah and Antonio Rüdiger, full-back Maximilian Mittelstädt and defensive midfielder Robert Andrich.

All of them would be suspended for the next game with the next yellow card. And one of them, Tah, got it too. But there was one circumstance that both Nagelsmann and Yakin had no influence over with their decisions: the pitch.

In the first few minutes of the game, it was clear that the players on the ground were not lacking in kicking skills, but rather in ball control. Even Toni Kroos, and that's saying something, failed to receive the ball at times. Speaking of him: the Swiss – this was one of the key findings that Murat Yakin must have taken from the Germans' two games – always sprinted towards Kroos with one man as soon as he had the ball.

In doing so, they cut off the German attack in the first half of the game from the man on the bridge. This meant that his most important recipients, İlkay Gündoğan, Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz, were completely detached – just not in the way that the audience probably wanted.

Because the Germans couldn't find a way through the middle, they looked for it on the outside. There, Maximilian Mittelstädt crossed the ball flat into the penalty area in the 17th minute. Musiala stretched out his leg, the Swiss Michel Aebischer cleared, but it went to Andrich, who shot the way he usually shoots: with force. The ball slipped through the arms of goalkeeper Yann Sommer.

The Germans were already ready for kick-off when the referee looked at the scene on the sidelines again – and saw what the VAR had seen: that Musiala had kicked Aebischer's legs. The decision: foul, no goal.

It was Musiala who lost the ball in the 28th minute. The Swiss switched and, when Kimmich was already in the way with his shoe, had the lucky bounce. Fabian Rieder passed the ball into the penalty area, where the German central defenders were not quick enough to react and were therefore a step too late: Rüdiger could not prevent the cross pass from Remo Freuler and Tah could not prevent the shot from Dan Ndoye. The ball flew under the crossbar. 1:0 for Switzerland.

The first German deficit. And it almost grew when Ndoye overtook Rüdiger shortly afterwards and shot the ball just wide of the goal.

In the most important scenes of the first half of the game, the German central defenders made the wrong decisions. And one of them had further consequences for Tah: In a duel with striker Breel Embolo, Tah stuck his foot so high that the referee showed him a yellow card for dangerous play. This meant that he would miss the round of 16.

In the 61st minute, Nagelsmann substituted Tah, who had fouled Embolo and was in danger of receiving a second yellow card, and Mittelstädt. He replaced them with Nico Schlotterbeck and David Raum, who demonstrated just two minutes later why Nagelsmann had chosen him: because of his drive towards goal. But he shot from more than 20 meters. Over. He would do better later.

In the 65th minute, Nagelsmann brought on a new striker: it was not Niclas Füllkrug, but Maximilian Beier. Füllkrug followed eleven minutes later, along with Sané. And when the game seemed lost, substitute Raum crossed to substitute Füllkrug, who headed the ball into the goal with a perfect shot – and was then brought down on the pitch by his teammates.