A gritty performance from Northern Ireland was not enough to deny Germany a first win of their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign. <\/p>\n
The under-pressure hosts were given a seventh-minute lead through Serge Gnabry but, on a nervy night in Cologne, Isaac Price’s volleyed finish 11 minutes before half-time pegged back Julian Nagelsmann’s side.<\/p>\n
Northern Ireland held out until the 69th minute when Nadiem Amiri capitalised on some rare confusion at the back for the visitors before a curling free-kick from Liverpool’s Florian Wirtz made it 3-1.<\/p>\n
Coming in off the back of three defeats, the most recent of which saw them open their Group A campaign with a 2-0 loss away in Slovakia on Thursday, Germany could not have hoped for a better start.<\/p>\n
A heavy touch by centre-back Eoin Toal saw Newcastle United’s new signing Nick Woltemade nip in and steal the ball before putting Gnabry though on goal.<\/p>\n
On what was Bailey Peacock-Farrell’s 50th cap Northern Ireland, the visiting goalkeeper had no chance of stopping the Bayern Munich man’s composed finish.<\/p>\n
The visitors were taking their time to adjust to Germany’s direct attack style with Gnabry and Jamie Leweling both almost getting in behind off early balls forward.<\/p>\n
Paddy McNair had to be alert to stop Woltemade getting a shot away with the San Diego FC man then having his side’s first chance when he headed over from a corner on the half-hour mark. <\/p>\n
It was from another corner four minute later that Price was left unmarked six yards out and he fired Justin Devenny’s delivery into the roof of the net.<\/p>\n
David Raum had a goal disallowed for offside before the break, but Northern Ireland finished the half stronger with Shea Charles increasingly prominent. <\/p>\n
As the pressure on the Germans ramped up, Leweling’s rising effort just before the hour-mark was their first real sight of goal in the second-half.<\/p>\n
Seemingly lifted, Germany forced Peacock-Farrell into a swift double-save before Waldemar Anton headed over from a corner.<\/p>\n
The visiting keeper then made a brilliant instinctive save from Wirtz but, with 22 minutes remaining, he then left a hopeful long ball only to see substitute Amiri nip in and tap home into an empty net.<\/p>\n
Three minutes later, Wirtz curled in a brilliant free-kick to make the game safe for Germany. <\/p>\n
More to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A gritty performance from Northern Ireland was not enough to deny Germany a first win of their 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-121588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}