It is hard to imagine right now, but this time last year Germany had been unbeaten for close to eighteen months. After a traumatic World Cup, 2018 finally comes to an end with a friendly against this summer’s hosts Russia
It’s difficult to believe how quickly the last few months have gone – maybe it has been the exceptionally decent weather. When I last looked at the match countdown there would be more than ninety days until Germany’s opening friendly
I started writing this two-match report after the first instalment of Germany’s much-criticised post-season (or should I say tail of the season) tour against Ecuador in Boca Raton, but the second match against the United States would leave me somewhat
The two teams walk out to a sparsely-populated stadium in Boca Raton, where most of the support appears to be for the yellow-shirted South Americans. It is a cloudy and somewhat humid afternoon in Florida, with a slight breeze and
So, we have our squad of twenty-three players for the two-match tour of the United States, numbered from one to twenty-four with no number nineteen. Weird. Maybe Paul Hardcastle had something to do with it. With the entire core contingent
Has it been so long? My plan was to write a couple of articles over the Winterpause, but it just didn’t happen. Real life, work, and what can best be described as winter writer’s malaise… I have no excuses. This
This was billed as a prestige friendly to end the calendar year, and seen by some as the third chapter in a three-part series that had started with the Mannschaft’s 3-0 win in Hamburg a year previously. Given the almost
That’s right, quite a few people fell asleep during this one. So, a rather dull close to the footballing year with a goalless draw in Amsterdam, an encounter that saw both goalkeepers have a quiet evening – apart from one
So, it’s the final piece of what has been a dramatic and ultimately disappointing year for the Nationalmannschaft – and the third act of a three-part show against the Netherlands that started just around this time last year in Hamburg.