Germany‘s starting line-up to face Portugal was packed full of household names. The team contained five World Cup winners, seven Champions League winners and players who have won numerous domestic titles in England, Spain and of course, Germany.
Amongst all the seasoned champions was Atalanta’s 26-year-old wing-back Robin Gosens, a player whose Wikipedia honours list reads: Serie A Team of the Year, 2019-20. There are probably plenty of German fans who don’t know much about him. Rather unusually for a German international, he hasn’t played a single minute of his career in the Bundesliga, having started out in the Netherlands before moving to Italy.
But in a match involving a galaxy of stars, drawn from the world’s biggest clubs and developed in Europe’s top academies, it was Gosens, formerly of such heavyweights as FC Dordrecht and Heracles Almelo, who was the game’s most influential player. Poor Nelson Semedo, Portugal’s right back, will be having recurring nightmares about Gosens charging at him like a freight train.
Gosens thought he had scored his second international goal inside the opening five minutes when he acrobatically turned a cross in at the back post. His joy was short-lived, however, as an offside call against Serge Gnabry in the middle meant it was chalked off. Only good goals are being ruled out at Euro 2020 – add this one to Kylian Mbappe’s individual brilliance and Joel Pohjanpalo’s towering header to the scrapheap pile.
Despite starting the game as though they were playing on 1.5x speed, Germany went behind in the 15th minute after being undone by a lightning quick break from their opponents.
Toni Kroos’ corner was cleared by Pepe and 16 seconds and eight touches later, Manuel Neuer was picking the ball out of his net. Bernardo Silva to Diogo Jota to Cristiano Ronaldo. Portugal’s new guard supplying the pace and the vitality and the elder statesman applying the finishing touch.
Germany dusted themselves down, regrouped and drew level 20 minutes later. A raking crossfield ball from Germany’s right wing-back, Joshua Kimmich, found their left wing-back, Gosens and he rifled a low cross into the six-yard-box towards Kai Havertz with Ruben Dias getting the decisive touch.
Just four minutes later and Germany had turned the game on its head. Gosens was involved in the build-up, but it was Kimmich on the opposite side who forced Portugal’s second own goal in much the same fashion as the first – a low cross turned in by a Portuguese defender, this time Raphael Guerreiro.
The central theme of Fernando Santos’ half-time team talk would surely have been to get out to Germany’s wing-backs quicker to try and prevent them from inflicting further damage. Either his players didn’t listen or they were simply powerless to prevent the inevitable.
Germany got their third on 51 minutes when Gosens, given the freedom of the Allianz Arena by the hapless Semedo, fizzed a ball across for Havertz to tuck into an empty net. Alphonso Davies famously gave Semedo the runaround when Bayern Munich obliterated Barcelona 8-2 in the 2019-20 Champions League semi-final and while not as fleet of foot as the Canadian, Gosens inflicted similar amounts of misery.
There was a sense of inevitability about the scorer of Germany’s fourth goal and indeed how it would be converted. Kimmich sent in the cross from the right, Gosens attacked it from the left and Germany had a 4-1 lead on the hour mark. It was old-fashioned wing play at its most devastating.
Mercifully for Semedo, moments after Gosens had got on the scoresheet, the German wing-back’s No 20 flashed up on the fourth official’s substitution board. Unsurprisingly, for a man who had a direct hand in three of Germany’s four goals and played a part in the other, Gosens was treated to rapturous applause from the home fans.
It was clever management on Jogi Low’s part. A benefit to having never played in the Bundesliga is that Gosens is immune to the tribal rivalries that exist in the club game in Germany: until he joins a team in his home country – let’s face it, it will probably be Bayern – Gosens will be universally adored by everyone. That he was taken off 30 minutes from the end was an indication of his growing importance to this side.
Germany have been largely written off for Euro 2020 – football fans never, ever learn, it seems – but this performance showed that they have the firepower to trouble anybody. Carry on like this and the honours section on Gosens’ Wikipedia page will need a refresh.
More from i on Euro 2020
- The football nomad who became a hero for his role in saving Eriksen’s life
- How Ronaldo’s Coca-Cola stunt could change the face of football sponsorship
- In praise of Emma Hayes, the best pundit at Euro 2020 so far
- Eriksen collapse has thrown a spotlight on football’s relentless thirst for more
- How to watch every Euro 2020 match on TV and online in the UK
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3cTSvH0
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