Analysis: Germany

Germany set up in a 3-4-3 in possession, with wing-backs Thilo Kehrer and Nico Schulz moving into the midfield line alongside Toni Kroos and Joshua Kimmich. The attacking trio was comprised of Timo Werner, Leroy Sane and Serge Gnabry.

Germany had two primary strategies in attack. The first was to drop Gnabry, who played frequently as a false nine, into an attacking midfield position and play the ball into his feet. Invariably he would bring an opponent with him – this was often Dutch centre-back Matthijs de Ligt, but sometimes he would occupy Marten de Roon or Frenkie de Jong if they weren’t already monitoring Kimmich and Kroos.

When the ball was played into Gnabry’s feet, he could either set it to Kroos or Kimmich in front – who would be forward-facing and could play a penetrative pass as the next action – or he could play it around the corner to Werner or Sane. This strategy could be seen for Germany’s opening goal, scored from distance by Werner, and was repeated several times.

The second strategy was to look for the runs of Sane and Werner in behind the Dutch defence. If Kroos, Kimmich or any of the Germany back three had good possession with no or limited pressure on the ball, then Sane could be seen looking to run in behind. The high positioning of Schulz on the left meant that Dutch right-back Kenny Tete had to watch him as well as Sane; de Roon would often drop in to help, but Sane was clever and would look to begin his run whenever de Roon was looking at the ball and not him. This was evident for Germany’s second goal.

Out of possession, Germany used a 5-2-3 mid-block, with Schulz and Kehrer joining Niklas Sule, Mats Hummels and Antonio Rudiger in the back line. Germany rarely looked to press the Netherlands defenders, and would instead encourage play to go out wide. They then used their wing-backs to press Netherlands full-backs Daley Blind and Tete, but as the game progressed and Germany had a lead to defend, they selected their moments to close the ball down.

If the ball was in the German half, Sane would close the ball down from a higher position and try to prevent a pass back to the Dutch centre-backs; Kimmich would move towards the ball from a central position and try to prevent play from coming inside; and Kehrer would press from the right to discourage further forward play, while the remaining four defenders in the back five would cover across.

Germany had to deal with being underloaded – two against three – in the middle of the pitch in the second half, so they would use wide attackers Sane and Werner to do a half-and-half job between the Dutch full-back and central midfielder on their side. This opened up the possibility of the Netherlands playing in centrally and then out to the free full-back as the wide attacker moved to close down the midfielder – but this simply meant that the Dutch would have possession wide, which the German defensive structure was set up to deal with.