Four observations from Germany’s 2-0 Nations League win over Serbia

Germany beat a courageous Serbia in a deserved 2-0 victory in the UEFA Nations League. The Mannschaft was clearly the better team and overwhelmed the strong Serbian defense. Jürgen Klopp’s search for new talent continued as new players auditioned for the national colors in historically weak areas.

Veljko Paunović set up the visiting Serbian team to absorb German attacks. His team managed to contain the vertical movement, but was exposed once the Germans sent diagonal balls. Despite multiple chances, excellent goalkeeping from Djordje Petrović and poor finishing from the home team, Serbia were unable to contain the German team. Here are the observations of this luminaire:

A necessary surge of young blood

The German team’s problems have remained largely unresolved in recent years. The need for true wingers, defensive midfielders and full-backs has been met by generalist players rather than specialists in the position. Leroy Sané, Joshua Kimmich, Kai Havertz are some notable examples. Each of them either had role aptitude or fitness issues that made them below average, which affected the team’s overall ability.

Jürgen Klopp went to town to select every possible German he could play with in order to find the next generation of specialists who could also meet today’s needs. Freiburgers Philipp Treu and Derry Scherhant got long minutes against Serbia at right back and left winger respectively. These two positions pinched the weak links that Klopp had prioritized. Treu and Scherhant put in decent performances, earning them more time with the national team.

Reinvigorated locker room

One of the biggest differences between the latter stages of the Nagelsmann era and Klopp’s new regime has to be energy. The team may not be the most in sync with each other, but they don’t seem clueless. They don’t think or wait for what the next step will be. As bad as the standard was set, it’s safe to say that the German team rose from that low level.

21 shots were taken by Germany from inside the box and it is pleasing to see that this was achieved from just 44 touches in the box. This means that on average the Germans took just one touch in the box before taking a shot on goal, indicating a drift from the common ping-pong in the penalty area, where players seemed very hesitant to send the ball into the goal.

Overall, the energy and movement improved significantly, allowing the team to dominate possession and momentum. However, there remains one big caveat which constitutes the next observation.

This was the biggest disappointment of the evening. The team deserved better shooting efficiency. There were several instances where a shot on target was all that was needed to score, but the German attackers still missed badly. In other cases, the ball was fired directly at Serbian goalkeeper Djordje Petrović who made a brilliant outing with six saves in total. His positioning was excellent, adding pressure and putting off the German shooters.

The MannschafHe skillfully led the Serbian defense with quick movements and changes of direction. They made good use of diagonal passes and crosses to provide some of the best service German attackers have received in recent times. Nick Woltemade and Florian Wirtz could easily have added 3 or 4 goals with their headed attempts.

Bayern and Germany’s midfield is really flourishing with the opportunities given. In midfield with Aleksandar Pavlović, Bischof was a driving force for his team. He combined his hard work ethic with exceptional vision, as he was unstoppable at finding his teammates with daring vertical passes.

Bischof created three chances, while putting a lot of pressure on the Serbs to increase the pressure on him, opening up space for the attackers. The Bayern midfielder unleashed a searing shot to score the opening goal and almost repeated it with another from outside the box, but for Petrović’s anticipation.

The well-executed sliding tackle in the 56th minute was a display of Bischof’s defensive team. He can get dirty very well, but he is not a violent rowdy who can lose his mind in the heat of the moment. His measured defensive performance has consistently put him at the top for most tackles in the game (3).

A fantastic left foot, profuse vision and strong tackling ability make this player very valuable to Klopp and Germany.

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