Football Manager’s FeWC: Germany clearly losing to Indonesia in final

“We haven’t seen Germany under so much pressure in this tournament,” the streaming experts rolled their eyes in wonder. In the first leg of the final, Indonesia, who beat hosts England 5-3, were the dominant team right from the start.

After five minutes in the game, Ademola Lookman opened the scoring with a powerful shot into the near corner (5th). Then the German defense also made a mistake: Odilon Kossounou misused the ball in his own penalty area – and Niclas Füllkrug, of all people, took advantage of this faux pas (19th). The DFB team also created good chances, but left them unused – so things happened as they had to. Matteo Politano increased the score to 0-3 from a German perspective in the 69th minute of the game.

“It is the German player Niclas Füllkrug who makes the Germans cry,” Indonesia assistant coach Manar Hidayat told the DFB team management before the second duel. An additional part of motivation to go up? In the second meeting, though- however, the picture was the same: Germany missed chances, but Indonesia hit the mark with a quick double strike by Politano (15th) and Xavi Simons (19th), it seemed that the final was decided. Already. But: The DFB team came close again. Terem Moffi (50th) and two minutes later Dimitrios Giannoulis equalized at least in the second leg.

Of course, German head coach Sven Goly and his assistant Tery Whenett stepped in – to no avail. Indonesia took advantage of the gaps: Füllkrug (66th/85th) and Alejandro Grimaldo (90th) increased significantly. “That’s just football. We didn’t take advantage of the opportunities and we made individual mistakes. Otherwise we weren’t bad,” explained Goly later in the stream. The first ever FIFA World Cup Soccer Manager trophy and $10,000 in prize money will go to Indonesia.

It was only at the end of the competition that ‘Svonn’ and Whenett found their masters the previous days and in the semifinals it went almost perfectly.

Semi-final: Main men Tah and Raum – the goal of the tournament?

“They were much better and deserved to reach the final,” South Africa head coach Enzo Bento had to admit at the organizer’s microphone after the semi-final. a decisive factor in the first leg, in which Germany “had a clear plan and executed it very well”. The plan notably included Jonathan Tah – as well as the two David back-ups Raum and Denzel Dumfries, who, according to Goly, are “unstoppable”.

Tah Leverkusen was indeed positioned in a back three, but he acted offensively – and successfully. In the 25th minute of the game, he took a shot from the opponent with his chest and threw the ball from the second row into the net. The defender played an instrumental role in the 2-0 win. Raum, who again hit dangerous levels, headed over a free kick into the penalty area. Tah extended with a header and Odilon Kossounou also made it 2-0 with a header (36th). Randal Kolo Muani made the decision in the last seconds of the first half – he also scored a header.

If Enzo Bento had any hope for the second half, Christian Kouamé immediately put it in – with a dream goal. Just moments after the restart, Kouamé anticipated an accurate back pass to the goalkeeper and put the ball over the goalkeeper at the corner of the penalty area in Raúl style to make it 4- 0. Although South Africa also created a few chances, it was not really dangerous for the DFB team. Kolo Muani increased the score to 5-0 in the 76th minute of the match – but the virtual VAR conceded the goal again due to offside.

VAR with a lot of work: South Africa’s hope returns

Unlike the first leg, the second leg picked up speed much earlier. Also because South Africa had to go in: if Marcus Thuram failed to hit the bottom edge of the crossbar shortly after the kick-off (5th), he got five minutes into the game later to make it 1-0. Start a race to catch up? Not really: The DFB team bowed briefly and equalized twice. But both of Moffi’s goals were ruled out by the VAR in the game.

Back and forth developed – the final decision was made by Kolo Muani. Here too, the in-game VAR took a closer look, but eventually gave away the goal. To take the lead, Goly then took Dumfries and place. Both were booked and would have missed another yellow card in the first leg of the final. However, they were allowed to deny that because Goly and Whenett’s team did not let anything go wrong.