How Christian Wück changed the game of German footballers

When Klara Bühl turned away cheering after almost half an hour, Christian Wück finally let his emotions run wild. The new national coach of the German footballers had just seen a perfectly executed attack and he celebrated it loudly. He had previously held back a bit, but when the third goal again showed the advantages of his game idea and at the same time gave the German team a 3-0 win against England, he celebrated with lots of gestures.

In the 4-3 win on Friday evening, Wück was able to celebrate the perfect debut at London’s Wembley Stadium thanks to his team’s strong performance over long periods. “What went through my head was actually quite simple: It’s going well,” said Wück about his team’s strong first half hour. “That was crazy,” said Linda Dallmann. “You could feel that we went into the game with real fire.”

Giulia Gwinn, who made it 1-0 after just four minutes with a penalty kick and added another goal seven minutes later after an assist from Klara Bühl, also said that the players were eager to finally play under Christian Wück, “and you “I also noticed that he was tingling when the day came when it finally started.”

The 51-year-old had only had three training sessions with the German team beforehand and still managed to implement a clear game idea. Under his predecessor Horst Hrubesch, many long balls to Alexandra Popp had been the method, but after the former captain’s resignation, the DFB team should now play with flat, mostly short, passes from the back.

Wück wants his central defenders, on Friday they were Janina Minge and Sara Doorsoun, to stand very wide, push the full-backs up and one of the sixes, Sjoeke Nüsken or Elisa Senß, to come forward to get involved in the build-up of the game.

Only in exceptional cases should goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger pass a long ball to Linda Dallmann in the ten position; the aim is rather to quickly move the ball across the center. “We don’t want to play this kind of safety football and always feel like we have five players behind the ball,” explained Gwinn.

Against England, Germany was able to repeatedly outplay the high pressing of Alessia Russo, Beth Mead and Lauren Hemp. Lateral shifts followed, which also led to success with Germany’s second and third goals.

In the second half, Germany’s pressing is the key to success

However, if the German players made a pass error or the allocation was incorrect, this risky approach quickly became dangerous given the high quality on the other side. After Georgia Stanway’s penalty goal in the 33rd minute, Germany was unsorted when Stanway’s second goal three minutes later.

Shortly afterwards, Doorsoun made a bad pass in the build-up, but Ella Toone then missed the equalizer from 14 meters, completely unmarked. Christian Wück is taking a certain risk with his game idea, but it is calculated.

In the future it will therefore be important to further solidify this approach and not to become too overconfident in certain phases. After Stanway’s double strike, Germany lost control of the game and initially failed to regain it with simple passes.

After the break, Wück’s team dominated again. One means of doing this was the high pressing situationally and the fast-paced transition game after winning the ball. Jule Brand missed after about an hour, and a few seconds later Klara Bühl also failed to take advantage of a promising counterattack for the fourth goal. “The game had almost everything we wanted today,” said Dallmann.

Substitute Sara Däbritz finally made it 4-2 with a penalty kick. But England also struck back again ten minutes before the end of regular time when Lucy Bronze took advantage of a mistake by Ann-Kathrin Berger after a free kick from half field, as the ball slipped through her fingers.

Ultimately, the result was closer than the game suggested. Especially in the second half, the German team hardly allowed anything to happen and seemed to be visibly comfortable with Wück’s system. No wonder, she fits in with this rejuvenated and eager-to-learn team. And better yet: the idea worked against a world-class opponent.