Germany 2 v 3 England, Olympic Stadium, Berlin
Report by Stuart Dawkins
A home club team who play in blue and white, a two-nil deficit overcome with a victory, a forward-thinking double-substitution with twenty minutes to go, a Vardy goal and the winning manager praising his team for being ‘fearless’. Thank you, Berlin, for making this Leicester visitor feel very at home.
It could have been so different. By the time we were eating breakfast, we already knew that neither Leicester player was in the starting eleven. After Butland’s unfortunate two minutes – unnecessary self-inflicted injury, poorly judged kick, beaten from distance on his near post and stretchered off – things looked set for a night of classic football – the kind where England play OK then Germany win – but it was not to be.
The Olympic stadium is a vast and impressive arena, and the organisation was, well, Germanic and efficient. Our tickets gave us free travel around the city before and after the game and a free programme – informing me of Vardy’s status as ein überragender Konterstürmer … vom Überraschungsteam Leicester City (an outstanding counter-attacker from surprise team Leicester City). The gates opened two hours before kick-off although there was a 40-minute queue for the very thorough, and sadly very understandable, security and clothing check.
The first half was well-balanced. Germany gave the ball away far too often –and looked uncertain in defence. England hustled and bustled – and looked uncertain in defence. Alli was the most effective player, closely followed by Kroos, and it was Kroos who took advantage of Butland’s misfortune to take a one-nil lead, which would have been two-nil apart from a very late flag from a linesman for Gomez’s ‘goal’ after 27 minutes (so late that the stadium screens continued to show their ‘Germany has scored’ graphics for quite some time after the score was cancelled).
The entire non-playing German squad warmed up on the pitch at half-time, whilst just six England players – including Vardy – did so: a revealing predictor of what was to happen in the second half.
But first, one more act was required to ramp up the unlikely nature of this unlikely night: Germany had to score again … and they duly did early in the second half. A decent, but hardly world-class chipped cross from the right found Gomez’s head too easily courtesy of England’s hesitant defence, and substitute keeper Foster had no chance. The two-nil score line was harsh on England, who were largely giving as good as they got.
German manager, Joachim Low, started the first of many changes at half time, and made four substitutions overall. With each one, Germany looked steadily worse. Hodgson, however, had clearly come with a plan to make this a ‘proper’ match, not a procession of substitutes, and made just one double-substitution, bringing Vardy on for the hard-working but out-of-position Welbeck and Barkley for the fairly anonymous Lallana.
Before that, however, Harry Kane – who looked sharp throughout – did what he does. The ball broke to him from a corner, he brilliantly turned past the Germany defence, looked up and … from my seat directly behind his line of shot, even before he struck it I could tell you exactly which part of the net just inside the far post the ball would hit – and it duly did.
With the substitutions, there was a suspicion that England were now lining up far more close to a 4-4-2 than normal: Barkley slotting in a more central role with Kane and Vardy marauding at will. That structure led to the England equaliser. You’ll have seen the Vardy goal by now, I am sure. Indeed, I suspect there are some people who may only have seen it, say, ten or a dozen times; others many, many more.
Barkley – whose first thought is usually too get the ball forwards – released Clyne on the right; Clyne out-ran his defender and played in a perfect low cross. Vardy did what he does: get across to the near post and beat the defender and the keeper with one well-timed touch – you expect him to score at such times and he did exactly that. Watching it live, part of my brain was saying ‘jeez, he back-heeled that!’ but there was too much celebrating to do for much analysis. Watching the replays on the big screen brought home what an audacious and confident moment it was.
A few minutes later, Vardy should have got his second assist in an England shirt: harrying a defender into a mistake, tee-ing the ball up for Alli to face an empty net from 12 yards, but the Spurs wonder-kid missed! Pretty much the only blemish on his man-of-the-match performance.
England were now looking the better team, and they got this most unlikely of wins when Dier was gifted a free header by Schürrle – one of a number of un-impressive German substitutes – from a corner deep into stoppage time. England had beaten the world champions – albeit in a friendly – away from home, from two goals down!
Some further reflections:
– The German fans took the whole thing remarkably calmly and with good humour. We were sitting in a ‘German’ section and travelled to and from the stadium in packed, friendly underground trains full of German supporters. I’m sure they know this was only a friendly and expect far better performances in the Euros. They will need them, defensively – in particular – German looked some way from a competition-winning team.
– I was a little disappointed that only one set of German fans spotted and cheered my Leicester City scarf.
– Vardy’s substitution seemed very popular with the noisy England fans: causing chants of ‘Jamie Vardy’s having a party’ even before he had scored; never mind afterwards. Unless I am mistaken, he was the only player to get ‘his own’ chant from the away fans all evening.
– It was, of course, great to see Danny Drinkwater on the pitch for the warm-up, even though we knew already that he would not get a game today. His time is coming.
– Hodgson’s gamble on picking the four Spurs players worked well: Alli was outstanding, Kane almost as good, Dier convincing and Rose solid. Indeed, how fitting that all three goals came from players of the two teams leading the Premier League in this unlikely season. I have a small suggestion to make to the FA and the Premier League: let Leicester and Spurs share the title, and let their relevant players start for England in the Euros – that would save both sets of supporters much stress and potential heart-ache AND give England a decent chance in France!
The views expressed in this report are the opinions of the Trust member nominated to file the report only and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation