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Joshua Kimmich celebrates after his 1-0
Photo: IMAGO / IMAGO/ActionPictures
The German national soccer team said goodbye to the summer break with an extremely convincing victory.
With the 5: 2 (2: 0) over Italy, the team of national coach Hansi Flick achieved their first success after the last three draws in the Nations League.
Germany had never won so high against the Italians before.
Joshua Kimmich (7th minute), İlkay Gündoğan with a penalty kick (45th minute), Thomas Müller (52nd) and Timo Werner (67th/69th) scored the goals that put the German team up in the group table Second place behind Hungary.
Wilfried Gnonto 78th minute and Bastoni in stoppage time provided the Italian consolation goal.
Despite the criticism of their previous performances, Flick had trusted the strikers Timo Werner and Leroy Sané and put both in the starting XI.
İlkay Gündoğan was also allowed to start again.
Italy's Roberto Mancini had made another radical rotation, nominating nine new players compared to the 0-0 draw in England.
Kimmich completely free
The German team started energetically, Sané was unlucky after seven minutes when he fired a long-range shot just wide of the goal.
Three minutes later it worked even better: Werner had stolen into the left corner of the penalty area, passed the wing to David Raum, whose cross found Joshua Kimmich, who was completely free, who shot in to make it 1-0.
After that, the German team controlled the game, but without creating further big chances.
Unlike a week ago in the 1-1 first leg in Bologna, the guests seemed very reserved and put little pressure on the front.
Preliminary decision with the break whistle
Only towards the end of the first half did the game regain momentum, Thomas Müller and Timo Werner were saved by Italy's goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
But he had no chance in injury time in the first half.
Jonas Hofmann had previously been fouled in the penalty area.
Gündoğan safely converted the penalty to make it 2-0 at the break.
The second half started turbulently, the Italians pushed for an equaliser, the German defense seemed anything but secure.
But this period of pressure was abruptly interrupted.
Müller refined the first German attack after the change with the third goal, he picked up a rebound on the edge of the penalty area.
After that it was up and down, there were many scenes from the penalty area on both sides and it was still the most beautiful goal of the evening.
At the end of a chain of combinations worth seeing, Timo Werner tackled the flank and the score was 4:0.
And because it was so nice for Werner, he made it 5-0 two minutes later.
Everything went fine that evening.
Aha