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Left-back Robin Gosen prepared two goals and scored one himself
Photo:
Christof Stache / POOL / EPA
Scene of the game:
Robin Gosens turned around again. It seemed like the German left-back wanted to take one last look at the stands so that he could remember that moment well in a few years when he's old and gray. After all, it was the day on which the 26-year-old wrote a little German summer fairy tale. Gosen had made the game of his life, prepared two goals in the European Championship match against Portugal and scored one himself. When the professional from Atalanta, son of a Dutchman and a German, who only arrived in top football at the age of 23, was replaced in the 62nd minute, "Robin Gosens" chants echoed through the Munich arena. Gosens has already written his biography. It is called: »Dreaming is worthwhile«.
The result:
Thanks to Gosens and an outstanding team performance over long sections of the game, Germany beat European champions Portugal 4: 2 (2: 1) on the second European Championship matchday of Group F. This means that the team of national coach Joachim Löw defends against the 0: 1 France at the beginning and before the last group game against Hungary on Wednesday the chances of the round of 16. Click here for the match report.
Prophecy of the game:
"We're looking for the golden mean," Löw had said before kick-off, referring to the balance between aggressiveness and defensive discipline. How much he had formulated the title of the game in advance became apparent in the first few minutes. Germany started powerful, had 80 percent possession after ten minutes and a fantastic offside goal from Gosens with a side pull (5th). But then the goal was conceded - and after a corner of their own: Suddenly four Portuguese were against three German players. Bernado Silva with a plum-soft chipball on Diogo Jota, the German defensive was exposed, Jota put down on Ronaldo. And then you know what's coming.
CR107:
Ronaldo had never before scored a goal against Germany in a tournament with Portugal. He had recently lost four times with his team against German teams. But now the 36-year-old finally scored against the DFB team, it was already his third goal in the tournament. With this, Ronaldo has pushed the European championship goalscorer record further up to twelve goals and with 107 international goals is only two away from the world record of the Iranian Ali Daei (109).
Forced own goal I:
If you start with a saber rattle and then fall behind, you sometimes don't recover from it. Or he exaggerates the zeal and takes the next hit. Not so the German team on that day. It remembered that it had a lot of imagination on the offensive. And so it forced an own goal equalizer. The eager Joshua Kimmich lifted the ball over to the brilliant Gosens, who took it directly. In the middle, Rúben Dias wanted to clear before Kai Havertz and grabbed the ball into the net (35th). Almost exactly at this spot on Munich's lawn, Germany conceded a similar own goal against France on Tuesday.
Forced own goal II
: something historic happened four minutes after the 1-1 draw.
For the first time in European Championship history, a team underwent two own goals in a game.
Kimmich did not lose a rebound, played into the six-yard area, where Dortmund's Raphaël Guerreiro unluckily pushed the ball into his own goal to make it 2-1 (39th).
The tournament of own goals:
And the own goals in general.
We can look forward to researching the causes, but it is the own goals championship.
There have already been five at this tournament.
That is a record.
So far there have never been more than three, and at all European championships only nine.
Löw's stubbornness is rewarded:
After the defeat at the
beginning,
the national coach was given many tips on how to rebuild his team. But Löw did: nothing. He played exactly the same team as against France, with Kimmich as right-back and Havertz in attack. And that was rewarded. Havertz scored the 3: 1 (51st) after Gosens crossed in. Kimmich sent an accurate cross to Gosens, who scored his very first international goal with a head and increased it to 4: 1 (60th). The same elf was standing here on the lawn, but it was a completely different one.
Wiggle in the end:
Löw had put a lot of emphasis on training the set pieces. But he couldn't stop his own weakness when the balls were at rest. Portugal came up again with a goal from Jota after a free kick (67th) and also had a goal from Renato Sanches (78th). Germany wobbled, but Portugal is also one of the top three teams in the world right now. In the end it stayed at 4-2.
Quote from the game:
"I'm glad the coach left me on and I could still make my hut," said Gosens after the game. Löw had actually wanted to replace him because the full-back complained of adductor problems. Marcel Halstenberg was already ready on the sidelines. But then came the header and the "Robin Gosens" chants. "I lost one," said Gosens.
Cool pigeon:
Gosens was the player of the game, but there was another star. Shortly before the half-time whistle, the colorful German football boots were still stamping through the Portuguese half, when a pigeon landed on the grass. She was not deterred by the energy of the game, not even by the fact that Thomas Müller once sprinted just past her. She just sat there and pecked. The DFB-Elf has a black eagle in their coat of arms, but maybe they should think about adopting that pigeon as a heraldic animal for the EM. It is precisely this casual indifference that you can still need in the course of the tournament.