Euro-2024: the party continues for Germany, qualified for the 8th

Germany continues. After his inaugural success against à Scotland (5-1), the Mannschaft qualified for the round of 16 of its Euro-2024 à home by dominating Hungary (2-0) Wednesday à Stuttgart, at the end of a new successful collective performance.

For a team in reconstruction, Germany still has a good lead as favorite. And his audience is already singing: “Berlin, Berlin, we are going to Berlin”, where the final will be played. It is meanwhile the first nation qualified for the eighth, even before the other results of its group A.

In Stuttgart on Wednesday, the four-time world champion faced a much more robust and dangerous opponent than Andy Robertson's Scotland, stifled and without solution in front of the German steamroller.

But he showed opportunism, and demonstrated that his successful entry into the running owed as much to his collective strength as to the weakness of the Scots.

Julian Nagelsmann's men expected to suffer against a tenacious Hungary but beaten from the start by Switzerland (3-1), who had to attack and push to stay alive. They probably didn't expect it to happen so soon.

– Musiala/Gündogan, winning duo –

German fans in front of a big screen in Berlin celebrate their team's qualification for the round of 16 of Euro-2024 on Wednesday, June 19. © AFP – Joerg CARSTENSEN

Because the Eagles almost got picked off from the kick-off, the eternal Manuel Neuer, 38 years old, narrowly avoiding the opener of the score of Roland Sallai (1st), a toe short of anticipating the exit of the Bavarian goalkeeper .

After this first alert, the Mannschaft players, carried by their thousands of supporters, put their foot on the ball and tried to get around a compact Hungarian block in 3-4-3.

But it was following a failed combination in midfield that they shook again on a midfield corner. Liverpool Dominik Szoboszlai was poorly dismissed by the defense and taken back without control by Bendeguz Bolla, fortunately countered by Robert Andrich (7th).

Struggling to find a gap in the defense, the German metronome Toni Kroos decided to go over the top by launching Havertz, close to deceiving Gulasci after playing against the rock of Leipzig Willi Orban (12th).

The Germans, led by an inspired Gündogan-Musiala duo, subsequently showed themselves to be more and more pressing and precise, and ended up taking advantage of the passivity of the opposing defense to open the scoring.

While the Hungarian defenders had stopped playing by calling in vain for a foul from Gündogan on Orban, the Barcelonan continued his action and served Musiala, who concluded in force from the right (22nd, 1-0).

An action considered as the turning point of the match by the Hungarian coach Marco Rossi, who appeared very angry at a press conference in denouncing “double standards”, the referee having whistled a foul on a similar stroller in the other direction.

Jamal Musiala, author of Germany's first goal against Hungary on Wednesday at Euro-2024. © AFP – THOMAS KIENZLE

Freed by this second goal in two games from the new darling of the German public, the German players were unable to double their lead before half-time and only owed their narrow advantage to Neuer's saves on two free kicks from Szoboszlai (26th, 45th+1).

After the break, Leipzig goalkeeper Peter Gulasci kept his team alive with two saves in front of Wirtz and Kroos (55th), and goal scorer Barnabas Varga lacked realism to equalize with a header (60th), before the penalty fell.

Alone on the penalty spot to conclude a superb team move, captain Ilkay Gündogan doubled the lead and triggered the victory chants from the crowd to the tune of “Seven Nation Army” (67th, 2-0).

Drunk with joy, and with a few beers swallowed since midday, the fans dressed all in black and white are well on their way to a golden summer, after years of struggle on the international scene.

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