In their most recent friendly, Germany lost the first half of the game 1-0 to Greece, before winning the second 2-0 with the two halves looking like completely different matches.
It seems as though veteran Germany midfielder Toni Kroos was also aware of the dichotomy at play, as RTL Deutschland captured (via @iMiaSanMia) the Real Madrid man saying the following after the game.
“We know that a bad half is part of football. We also knew that we were not as good as we were made out to be in March, but also not as bad as before. There were too many mistakes. We were too relaxed. We then improved that significantly in the second half, we were focused, lost fewer balls and did better,” said Kroos.
It wasn’t just that Germany was making little mistakes in the first half, no, they were bad enough to stick out without having to go back and rewatch the match for the purpose of analysis.
Robert Andrich gave the ball away early in the first half in a situation that could’ve easily led to a dangerous attack for the opposition, and not too long after a wayward Florian Wirtz pass failed to find Joshua Kimmich in a passage of play that ended in Manuel Neuer making a brilliant double save to keep the score level.
Neuer wasn’t able to maintain his high level, however, as later in the half he gave up the ball after making a routine save to allow Greece to take the lead. On top of this, the entire backline looked shaky, and its members were often out of position.
Luckily the Germans got their heads straight for the second half because if Germany at all resembles how it played in the first once the Euros start, it’ll be a short tournament for Nagelsmann’s men.