It was only a friendly, but Germany’s men’s national team woes continued against Ukraine. Hansi Flick’s post-World Cup experiments have begun, but it took two moments of late heroics from Chelsea FC’s Kai Havertz in the game’s closing ten minutes and change to pull level from a 3-1 deficit and rescue a draw.
“This game sums up the current state of the team,” the former Bayern Munich head coach lamented after the match (via DFB.de). “We started well, took the lead and the fans were involved too. Individual mistakes then led to the opposition scoring goals. The coordination between our players wasn’t quite right, we have to work on that.”
Flick’s star ascended at Bayern Munich as a 4-2-3-1 disciple, and it was expected that he would help take the national team back to its roots as well after Joachim Löw’s ill-fated back three adventure at EURO 2021. However, it was Flick himself instigating a three center-back trial lineup this time. Are these growing pains, or is it time to flip the script again? Flick will hope it’s the former.
“We know this is going to be a long process,” Flick continued. “The important thing was the team showed a good mentality, but we still have to talk about things we have to improve on. We created chances and didn’t take them. Ultimately though, we’ll take the positives from tonight.”
Interested in more analysis of the game? Then why not check out our postgame podcast? We talk about the back three and Hansi’s selection headache at fullback, issues with experience, and the lack of chance creation. Listen to it below or on Spotify.
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