Three days after the heavy 4-0 defeat against Poland, U-21 coach Antonio Di Salvo and centre-back Malick Thiaw reported a clear discussion and vowed to improve. Only next year’s return matches in Israel and Poland will show whether that is sustainable, however.
The shock was gone from Di Salvo’s face, and the U-21 head coach appeared tidy when he reported on Monday afternoon on the process of coming to terms with the unexpected debacle against Poland: “We have values in our U-21 team, and the most important thing is open and honest communication. I also expect the players to speak their minds. After this game, it was appropriate to openly and clearly make a tough analysis of the mistakes. The defensive behaviour was not good, we all know that.”
The chain of errors, however, already began with the offensive forces, who initially held few balls and lost many, but logically ended in the back four. That’s where Schalke’s Malick Thiaw has earned a regular place inside over the past few games, was still the best of the quartet on Friday thanks to an excellent second-half header chance among other things, but was also far from in good form on the day.
Thiaw: “We are Germany. This must not happen to us. “
“We slept through the first 20 minutes as a whole team, we weren’t there mentally. The Poles were superior to us in the basics, they took the duels. We didn’t communicate well, we had too much space at the back of the chain,” Thiaw described some of the painful findings of his analysis and revealed: “The team was very angry and very disappointed. We are Germany, we didn’t expect to lose 0:4 against Poland. This must not happen to us. Everyone is aware of that.”
Will it happen again? The answer to that question will only be known after the second legs at the direct rivals for victory in European Championship qualifying Group B. In March 2022, they will first face the Israelis, who are currently level on points, and then Poland, who are currently two points behind them, in the last qualifying match in June. Thiaw also knows that football dwarf San Marino will not be a yardstick on Tuesday evening in Ingolstadt: “We know that not everything will be forgotten against San Marino. But this is our first step. Everyone should reach their performance limit again and as a team we have to be compact.”
Even if the opponents are unlikely to challenge the DFB Juniors in view of the 6-0 victory in the first leg, Di Salvo naturally also wants to see an improvement in the short term: “Now it’s a matter of learning from our mistakes, looking ahead, taking the positive aspects of the game against Poland with us, tackling and showing a reaction.” This will also have to be tested in a match characterised by one-sidedness in elements such as body language, passing precision, determination, hunger for goals and counter-attacking.
After the departure of the two temporary right-backs Jean-Manuel Mbom (red suspension) and Roberto Massimo, who, like centre-back Marton Dardai, has caught an infection, Di Salvo will have to improvise at right-back even more than he already has. He named six-man Eric Martel and Yannik Keitel as candidates.
