Germany<\/a> and the other opponents.\u201d What he had just experienced does not come around very often. He had set up Cura\u00e7ao to give it a go but they had quickly fallen behind to a goal from Felix Nmecha, who finished beautifully after Florian Wirtz\u2019s smart return pass. Other chances came and went in the early moments before Comenencia, the FC Z\u00fcrich midfielder, almost raised the vast, vertiginous venue\u2019s closed roof.<\/p>\nCura\u00e7ao\u2019s Livano Comenencia celebrates after scoring a fine equaliser in the first half against Germany. Photograph: Eric Gay\/AP<\/p>\n
Cura\u00e7ao had warmed into the game, working some enticing spaces via the clever footwork of Tahith Chong, when a rapid attack down the right was only half dealt with by Nico Schlotterbeck. J\u00fcrgen Locadia, seizing on the loose ball, had a shot blocked but Comenencia was not to be denied. He cracked the follow-up past Manuel Neuer via a slight deflection and wrote a surely indelible entry in World Cup lore.<\/p>\n
Advocaat\u2019s players went straight back on the attack. They were coursing with adrenaline and momentum but were almost immediately halted by the now standard three-minute \u201chydration break\u201d, apparently still necessary in a stadium cooled to about 22C. Instead of football a pulsating crowd was distracted by a mariachi band performance from a stage in one of the corners. Nobody should be deluded: Germany would have won this match regardless. But nor should anyone avoid an uncomfortable truth: the game\u2019s balance shifted after Nagelsmann was granted the opportunity to talk sense into a rattled looking group. Who, exactly, do these pauses serve? An honest answer would go a long way.<\/p>\n
Jamal Musiala finishes in style for Germany. Photograph: Paul Ellis\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cWe needed a little bit and the drinks break was actually good,\u201d Nagelsmann said. He admitted Cura\u00e7ao\u2019s approach had caused a degree of surprise. Germany gathered themselves to create a stream of opportunities before Schlotterbeck, earlier denied by the busy Eloy Room, glanced Nathaniel Brown\u2019s corner across the goalkeeper. By half-time they had in effect completed the job, the constantly marauding Nmecha winning a penalty that Havertz converted nonchalantly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost by a larger margin than we expected, but we know how good the Germans are,\u201d Advocaat said. They showed it in scoring four more against a defence that could muster only so many last-ditch blocks. Jamal Musiala chopped in a confidence-boosting angled finish from Joshua Kimmich\u2019s slide-rule pass and, midway through the second period, the impressive left-back Brown steered in a deft volley. Brown, 23 on Tuesday, is nearing a \u00a347m move to Bayern Munich and appears to have solved a longstanding problem position for Nagelsmann.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we woke up, we turned it on,\u201d Brown said. The substitute Deniz Undav tapped in and Havertz ran clear late on to finish with style against opponents who continued to attempt a front-foot approach despite the glaring pitfalls. Cura\u00e7ao would even have found another moment to savour if Leandro Bacuna or Jearl Margaritha had located the target.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust defending will definitely lead to defeat so we tried to play more offensively, but it didn\u2019t work on all fronts,\u201d Advocaat said. That was true enough, but the blue wave had swept unforgettably in and out of Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The net rippled and Cura\u00e7ao\u2019s bench exploded in every conceivable direction, their giddiness underpinned by a firm awareness…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-639091","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\/639091","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=639091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}