Nico Schulz’s 90th-minute winner on Sunday fired Germany to a dramatic 3-2 victory over the Netherlands in their opening Euro 2020 qualifier, lifting the pressure off coach Joachim Loew.
It was Germany’s first win in a competitive game since last year’s FIFA World Cup, and it came after a game in which Loew’s side showed strength and fragility in equal measure.
Germany were magnificent in the first 45 minutes in Amsterdam, but were outplayed in the second half as the Netherlands came back from 2-0 down against their rivals for the second time since November last year. Yet Schulz prodded in a last-gasp winner against the run of play to hand Germany the win.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The win will do us a lot of good, it is great for us as a team,” Schulz told RTL.
Loew praised his team’s fighting spirit after a roller-coaster evening.
“We played really well in the first half, but in the second half we weren’t really on the same level,” Loew said. “I was impressed by hard how the team fought and how they kept on believing until the end. Full credit to them.”
Germany burst out of the blocks and Netherlands goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen had to beat away a fierce shot from Serge Gnabry after just two minutes.
With a quarter of an hour gone, the visitors took a deserved lead when Schulz burst up the left wing and found Leroy Sane with a low cross. As defender Matthijs de Ligt slipped on the turf, Sane slipped away and smashed the ball past Cillessen.
However, the hosts looked equally dangerous at the other end and veteran Ryan Babel forced two outstanding saves in quick succession from Manuel Neuer, but the Johan Cruyff Arena fell silent when Gnabry found the top corner with a breathtaking strike from the edge of the penalty area on 35 minutes.
“Don’t forget we were playing Germany,” Netherlands coach Ronald Koeman reminded anyone who was unaware. “We knew the Germans would come at us and we got off to a poor start.”
The hosts responded furiously after the break and De Ligt made up for his earlier error by flicking a Memphis Depay cross past Neuer to make it 2-1.
With just over an hour gone, Olympique Lyonnais forward Depay squeezed a shot through a crowded penalty area to level the scores.
The Netherlands looked the more likely winners for much of the rest of the match until Schulz popped up in the penalty area late on to steer in the winner and crown a thrilling match.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS