Klopp debut with enthusiasm, mistakes and draw

Until injury time, it looked like a made-to-measure start for national coach Jürgen Klopp. But then the Dutch scored against an enthusiastic but flawed DFB team to compensate. Felix Nmecha (32nd), Cody Gakpo (90 +2nd) equalised the lead to 1-0. By Christian Hornung The draw was ultimately deserved.

The German team demonstrated the passion and dedication demanded by Klopp, Karim Adeyemi had already had the first promising scene in the penalty area after 45 seconds, but sought play instead of shooting himself. The DFB team maintained the pressure, quickly recaptured the ball after losing the ball, but despite all their enthusiasm, they also had a blatant error rate. Klopp then said on the ARD microphone: "I would have liked to have won, but Holland deserved the draw. We had good phases, but we also lagged a bit after 1-0.

But what was there the whole time: full readiness, the boys did it all. That was what we had to see, there were great moments." Captain Joshua Kimmich was annoyed:: "We should have added the second goal after the lead. Although it was performance-oriented in the end, it was extremely annoying to get the conceded goal so late."Kimmich explained that the Germans did not play the ball into the end before 1-0, even though a Dutchman was injured on the ground: "We learn every year at the referee training that we should continue to play there. There is simply no rule to kick the ball out of the way." Jonathan Tah analyzed: "We have definitely managed to bring fire and energy into the game, which is a step in the right direction.

Of course, we would have liked to have won, so we're a little disappointed. But the intensity was exactly what we needed to implement everything else even better in the near future." There are a lot of controversial refereeing decisions to improve, both in the game from their own defense and in the positioning against the Dutch offensive players, the German team failed seriously on several occasions. There were three disputed scenes, as a result of which the team felt disadvantaged by the new Bondscoach Xavi - but the Spanish referee Alejandro Hernández correctly ruled in favour of the DFB team in all three cases. First Jonathan let Tah pass orange striker Brian Brobbey after a position error in the centre and pushed him from behind - but the touch was too easy for a penalty and red due to emergency braking.

Shortly thereafter, Tijjani pulled Reijnders hard from 20 meters and clearly hit Tah's hand - but there was no intention or widening of the body surface. VAR gets involved in van Dijk's goal In the 13th minute, however, the Dutch cheered. After a corner ball, Virgil van Dijk screwed up the five-meter space and headed the ball over the hesitant Marc-André ter Stegen into the long corner.

Hernández gave up the goal, but then the VAR switched on: Brobbey had obstructed ter Stegen slightly when running out, the referee conceded the goal again. The game tipped back and forth, the Dutch chose a hard gait: Quinten Timber and Jan Paul van Hecke each saw yellow within two minutes for rude entry against Kai Havertz and Kevin Schade - Havertz had to be substituted a little later. This was already the second fixed point of the Klopp offensive from the race: During the warm-up, Jamal Musiala had logged off with thigh problems. For him, Nadiem Amiri briefly slipped into the starting eleven, Havertz was replaced by Frankfurt DFB debutant Younes Ebnoutalib.

Nmecha annoys the Dutch The game remained stressful and did not allow itself any breathing space. After a good half hour, the hosts were angry again, even forming a pack: Nmecha completed an attack on Amiri, debutant Phlipp Treu and Adeyemi for the lead, but van Dijk and his teammates were angry: they demanded that the Germans hit the ball sideways because of an injury to Brobbey. However, Hernández had not interrupted the game, the goal was regular, and Germany could have added immediately. At first, Adeyemi was overlooked in a counterattack, then Nathaniel Brown made it better and played perfectly across the field - but Adeyemi shot the ball over the empty goal.

The Netherlands also had a chance with a header by Crysencio Summerville and Cody Gakpo, who had been hit by ter Stegen with his second bad miss. After all, the Ajax keeper corrected his misfortune with a good parade. Ter Stegen rescues against Dumfries, then Gakpo hits. The second half began a little less wildly, before an hour later ter Stegen was back in the spotlight. First, he saved with a strong foot defense against the freely broken Denzel Dumfries, then with renewed weaknesses when running out for danger in front of his own goal, which he defused with a parade against Mexx Meerdink.

Seconds later, he would have had no chance, but Meerdink pushed the ball freely past the empty goal. While Klopp brought the third debutant with Yannik Engelhardt from Freiburg, the Orange team pressed vehemently for the equaliser. But ter Stegen rescued several times before Gakpo still secured the 1-1 equaliser in the second minute of stoppage time after a capital ball loss from comebacker Serge Gnabry and a fantastic outside flank from Ruben van Bommel. Three more Nations League games For the Germans, things will get down to business three more times until the restart of the Bundesliga on the second weekend in October: on Sunday (27.09.2026), Greece will come to Augsburg, on 1

October it goes to Serbia, before the revenge against the Netherlands is due on October 4 in Berlin - kick-off is 8:45 pm, all games are available in the live ticker at sportschau.de.