Germany face Northern Ireland on Monday night, but manager Julian Nagelsmann had to make a comeback after making comments about his opponents that were described as “a little disrespectful”.
Germany manager Julian Nagelsmann was forced to retract his comments about Northern Ireland after the two teams played in Cologne last month, insisting the side’s “special approach” was “not great to watch”.
The German ran out a 3-1 winner in that game, but the former Bayern Munich manager will be critical of his assessment and ahead of the rematch in Belfast, he made his comments clear.
After a September encounter in which Serge Gnabry and Florian Wirths were included in the home team’s goal, Nagelsmann criticized the Northern Irishman, commenting on the amount of long balls they played.
Michael O’Neill recently insisted it was not his job to shape his team for the benefit of opponents, while former Northern Ireland defender Stephen Craigan said Nagelsmann’s views were “a bit disrespectful”.
The German manager has now appeared in court, claiming his comments were meant to be disrespectful. He said, “I said it might not be pretty to watch, but the more important topic, the important topic I mentioned, is that they play really well. They play the long ball with ideas.”
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“They have a special atmosphere within the team. I also said that it is very difficult to beat this team. They don’t concede many goals and in this way they create a lot of chances from set pieces. If anyone felt this was disrespectful, I would say sorry. I didn’t mean it as a disrespect. It was out of great respect for the team and their style of play.”
Germany and Northern Ireland both won two of their three World Cup qualifying matches. The Germans lead on goal difference and Nagelsmann insisted they would not “easily defeat” the hosts at Windsor Park, where they are unbeaten in seven games.
“They have a really special way of (playing) so every player on the pitch has to defend these situations,” he said. “It wasn’t easy to beat this team in the first leg. They use a lot of long balls, they cover all the spaces and you have to fight for the third and fourth balls to get the second ball. We saw that last time against Slovakia, they did really well and created a lot of stress in the final third.”
On Friday, Germany comfortably defeated Luxembourg, who were reduced to 10 players. Joshua Kimmich was also one of the goalscorers, and coach Nagelsmann was hoping to make his country a powerhouse again after several disappointing tournaments.
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