Leon Goretzka heads the DFB team for a victory of pragmatism

It was shortly before midnight when Leon Goretzka entered the mixed zone in the stomach the Milan Stadium San Siro, where dozens of journalists were waiting for him. Goretzka looked calm and caught. If he was pleased that he had decided on Thursday evening when he returned to the German national soccer team the first leg in the Nations League quarter-finals against Italy with a header for a 2-1 away win, he did not show.

He ran past the waiting press without an expression. Mr. Goretzka, maybe one sentence? The midfielder waved off, no statement, not today. He didn’t want to speak. And he stayed with it and was silent.

So he, the ancess loudspeaker, who had previously been considered to the World Cup in Qatar as Foreign Minister of the DFB teams because of his political admissions, was finally held it when it was bad for him. And it was bad.

For a year and a half, Leon Goretzka, 30 years old, had no more played for the German national soccer team. National coach Julian Nagelsmann had sorted him out, even with his club, FC Bayern Munich, Goretzka hardly played a role for many months. After weak performance at the World Cup preliminary round in Qatar, Goretzka was considered a discontinued model, the face of a crisis that had to be overcome.

But Goretzka did not get up, he did not complain, was silent and worked on his game. He persistently fought his way back to the Bavarian team and now also in Nagelsmann’s national team.

Goretzka’s return made a bottleneck in the German midfield center, where Aleksandar Pavlović and Felix Nmecha are currently missing. And the pragmatic personnel policy of the national coach.

Julian Nagelsmann makes void decisions. He has no problem correcting previous assessments when the situation of things has changed. He does not care about status, yesterday’s merits or mistakes, he is committed to the moment alone.

Nagelsmann knows how close the time until the World Cup is. How few games remain for him to develop the core of a new team. But because he is currently missing some regulars-playmaker Florian Wirtz, goalkeeper Marc-André Ter Stegen and attacker Kai Havertz-not so much the future, but above all the present. Once again he is forced to improvise. And again he radically relies on the momentum of players.

The national coach wants his provisional national team to benefit from those who are particularly well in shape in their clubs. Last year, this had mainly used the professionals from VfB Stuttgart, who were surprisingly second in the Bundesliga. On the Thursday end in Milan, none of the Stuttgart team currently stumbling in the league was more in the starting eleven. Instead, Nadiem Amiri, 28, and Jonathan Burkardt, 24, two offensive players from Mainz 05, last year in the relegation battle, now third in the Bundesliga.

Against this background, in addition to the return of the recovered Goretzka, Oliver Baumann is also to be understood as the new number one in the German goal. At 34, Baumann is not a candidate for a morning, but with his experience from around 500 professional games, he promises calm and consistency in now. And therefore received advantage over the clear younger Alexander Nübel from VfB Stuttgart.

Both Goretzka and Baumann agreed with the national coach on Thursday evening, each in his way. Baumann thwarted several major chances of the Italians and held the German team in the game after the early behind by Sandro Tonali. Goretzka gave a never -tired driver, he combined defense and attack in the German game and repeatedly caused unrest in the Italian penalty area, especially after Joshua Kimmich. It was also a cornerball of the German captain that Goretzka converted into a win over a quarter of an hour before the end.

“Leon came to me at halftime and said that the flanks were still a bit too high for him,” said Kimmich later in the mixed zone. “We have discussed that we try it flat, with balls on the first post. I am very, very happy for him.”

Previously, at the beginning of the second half, the substitute striker Tim Kleindienst had also made a head for the interim compensation after a Kimmich flank from the half area. Later, however, small service hardly spoke of himself, he preferred to tackle praise in the catacombs of the Milan Stadium on return from Goretzka.

“It was really fun to play with him, you know that he has an insane quality,” said small service. “It speaks for the player when it feels like he had never been away. He helped us a lot today. I think it is also nice to see for the national coach that it works.”

The away success not only gave the DFB team a good starting point for the second leg on Sunday in Dortmund. He could also help to carry the EM swing from the past into the new year after four months without an international. Nagelsmann is important. He wants the good results.

The national coach is doing, he had only explained this week to a psychology of the profit, the self -image of being a winning team. He sees it in this method and formula of success of the last title bearers. Argentina and Spain started their winning people long before the tournament successes. They became winning teams before winning titles. The German national team still have 14 caps to mature into such a team. Then the World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico begins.