European Football Championship 2024: Germany now against Hungary: The pitfalls of the second European Championship hurdle

Anyone who has ever ventured into athletics and hurdles as a footballer, whether amateur or professional, knows the pitfalls of this discipline. The tension is particularly high before the first hurdle because the obstacle, with its height of 106.68 centimeters, can seem quite intimidating for the men. But once you have overcome the first hurdle without an accident, the even greater challenge is to do the same at the second hurdle. The difficulty lies in maintaining the running rhythm.

This Wednesday the German national soccer team will play its second group game at the European Championships. In Stuttgart there will be a comparison with the Hungarians, who lost their first game against Switzerland 1:3, mainly due to several mistakes in defense. With another win after the 5-1 win against Scotland, the German Football Association (DFB) team could move into the round of 16. But history shows that second group games have often proven complicated.

This is also why the DFB has warned them about the second hurdle, even though they easily cleared the first, Scotland. However, the experienced Thomas Müller was still excited late on Friday evening about the dangers of the second group game. All those who, like him, have been there for a long time know: “No matter how you played the first game, an opponent will come back in the second game and make your life difficult.” Even and especially when the start goes well. Müller used the example of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, where the DFB team started with a 4-0 win against Portugal. “We always had great feelings, but then we played 2-2 against Ghana,” said Müller.

For the 34-year-old FC Bayern veteran, this is already his seventh tournament with the national team. At his first World Cup 14 years ago in South Africa, he experienced the pitfalls of the second hurdle. A 4-0 opening win against Australia was followed by a 0-1 defeat against Serbia. If you look through the past tournaments, German teams have missed out on a win in the second group game in nine out of 13 cases since winning their third and last European Championship title in 1996. The contrast was particularly sharp at the 2002 World Cup, when an 8-0 win against Saudi Arabia was followed by a 1-1 draw against Ireland. There were also goalless draws in the second group game against the outsiders Latvia (Euro 2004) and Poland (Euro 2016), to the general disillusionment. This almost also applied to the home World Cup in 2006, when the German team, after the 4-2 opening win against Costa Rica in Munich, only scored in stoppage time to secure a 1-0 win in the second game against Poland in Dortmund.

Now in Stuttgart the rule is to be broken, according to which German teams usually have difficulty in second group games. In any case, Nagelsmann is “in good spirits that we can win against Hungary.” The national coach promised: “We’ll try to play a game as good as against Scotland.” The 36-year-old doesn’t want to give the warning, but would rather continue riding the perfect wave after the 5-1 win. But his most experienced players warn as a precaution. Toni Kroos expects “a much more difficult game”, and Manuel Neuer also predicts that it will be “a different story” against the “very unpleasant team” from Hungary. Like Müller, Kroos and Neuer have been there since the 2010 World Cup, so they too experienced some disappointments in second group games. This time, however, they want to “stay in the flow,” says Neuer, and also break the streak of three games without a win against Hungary.

Transferred from hurdle sprinting to football, it may be possible to point out that it is not effective to jump over obstacles in as high an arc as possible. Rather, those who cross the ten hurdles in a curve that is as flat as possible are the fastest. In football that could mean something like: don’t want to do too much, stay calm and focused, play flat and, at best, win big. The good news is that the DFB team only has to overcome seven hurdles in 31 days to win the title.

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