Jürgen Klopp finally has lift-off. Ninety bruising, high-intensity minutes in Munich on Thursday night — a disciplined 2-0 win over Serbia — handed the 59-year-old his first victory as Germany coach at the third attempt, and spared him an unwanted slice of history: one more slip and he would have become the first Germany coach ever to go winless in his first three games. Instead, the Allianz Arena witnessed the first real sighting of Klopp’s Germany, and it looked exactly like the football he promised.
It was quite the night for international football. While Klopp was exorcising his demons in Munich, Thomas Tuchel’s England were dismantling Croatia 7-0 in Rijeka — a record Nations League demolition we broke down in full tactical detail. But Germany’s story was arguably the more instructive one: a manager ripping up his own blueprint after two games and trusting the boldest instincts of his career.
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Gamble 1: The Nuclear Option — 11 Changes and a 44-Man Audition
Let’s start with the headline act, because nothing Klopp did in Munich was subtle. After opening his reign with a 1-1 draw against the Netherlands and then suffering a shock 1-0 defeat to Greece in September, the new Bundestrainer named an entirely new starting XI against Serbia. Eleven changes. Not a tweak, not a rotation — a full reset.
The context matters. Klopp had nominated a bumper 44-man squad for this international window, a deliberate audition process designed to evaluate the full depth of German talent rather than lean on the established order that had stagnated. Against Greece, he trusted the senior core. They produced what observers called a turgid, lifeless performance. So Klopp did what Klopp has always done when the evidence turns against him: he acted, ruthlessly and immediately.
The message to the established stars could not have been louder. Reputations, caps and club pedigrees counted for nothing in Munich. What counted was energy, intensity and a willingness to run through the proverbial brick wall — the non-negotiables of every Klopp team from Mainz to Liverpool. It was a gamble that could have blown up spectacularly. Instead, it became the foundation of everything that followed.
Gamble 2: The Gegenpress Comes Home — Serbia Pinned in Their Own Third
If the team sheet was the statement of intent, the first 20 minutes were the proof of concept. Germany produced the disciplined, intensive, high-pressure performance Klopp has been demanding since day one — the classic gegenpress, transplanted to the international stage with barely three training sessions behind it.
Serbia were pinned into their own final third for long stretches, suffocated by a coordinated counter-press that hunted in packs of three and four. Aleksandar Pavlović, Nick Woltemade and Serge Gnabry all carved out good chances inside the first half hour, and the visitors mustered a single dangerous counter-attack across the entire 90 minutes. This was not the passive, possession-obsessed Germany of recent tournaments; this was a side built to win the ball back within six seconds of losing it.
As we explored in our data-led piece on whether possession football is dead, modern dominance is increasingly built on what happens in the seconds after losing the ball, not on sterile domination of it. Klopp’s Germany embodied that thesis in Munich: intensity as a tactic, chaos as a structure. Afterwards, the manager could barely contain himself. “That’s going in my archive,” he said, as reported by the Associated Press. “We’ll make a video out of it now. That’s how we want to play.” Telling public broadcaster ZDF, he added, as reported by SuperSport: “The mix of football and attitude was top level today. I told the boys that this has to be our benchmark.”
Gamble 3: Wirtz Unleashed as the Free No.10
Every great Klopp team has had its creative lightning rod — and in Munich, Florian Wirtz announced himself as the conductor of this new Germany. UEFA’s official Matchday 3 round-up singled out the Liverpool playmaker as the game’s shining light, and the description barely did him justice.
Wirtz was involved in everything. Shortly before half-time, he danced through a maze of Serbian legs inside the box and struck the post with an elegant piece of footwork — and Tom Bischof was perfectly placed to smash home the rebound for the opener. It was a goal made entirely by Wirtz’s refusal to accept the cul-de-sac, the kind of half-space improvisation that separates good No.10s from great ones.
Just after the hour, he sealed it himself. Collecting Maximilian Mittelstädt’s cross, Wirtz took the ball past a defender with his first touch and drilled it inside the right post with his second — a finish of devastating economy. Operating in a free No.10 role with licence to drift between the lines, he was untouchable. “It was important to win again, just for the spirit in the team,” Wirtz said afterwards, “and to send a signal out that we’re good football players and also a good football nation. Definitely a step in the right direction.”
Gamble 4: Width From the Full-Backs — Mittelstädt’s Overlapping Engine
With Wirtz roaming free between the lines, Germany needed genuine width from elsewhere — and Klopp’s answer was to push his full-backs into the final third as auxiliary wingers. It was a classic Klopp mechanism: the wide forwards tuck inside to overload the half-spaces, and the full-backs provide the overlap that stretches the defensive block horizontally.
The system’s poster moment arrived with the second goal. Mittelstädt, bombing on from left-back, delivered the cross that Wirtz converted — the overlap creating the exact 2v1 overload on Serbia’s right flank that the tactic is designed to produce. Time and again, Germany’s full-backs pinned Serbia’s wingers deep, which in turn compressed the space Wirtz, Woltemade and Gnabry were operating in to a phone box.
It is worth noting how deliberately this was coached rather than improvised. Serbia’s only route out was the long diagonal over the top — and Germany’s rest defence, with the double pivot sitting deep and the centre-backs holding a high line, snuffed it out almost every time. One dangerous counter in 90 minutes tells you everything about the structural discipline behind the attacking freedom.
Gamble 5: The Debutant Injection — Urbig, Scherhant, Janelt and the 1,000th Cap
Perhaps the boldest gamble of all was the human one. Three of Klopp’s entirely new XI were making their senior international debuts: Bayern goalkeeper Jonas Urbig, Freiburg forward Derry Scherhant and Brentford midfielder Vitaly Janelt. Köln’s Said El Mala was thrown on after the break for his own debut, and there was a lovely piece of history when Celtic’s Mika Baur came on as a 77th-minute substitute to become the 1,000th player ever to represent Germany.
None of them looked overawed. Urbig commanded his box with a calmness that belied his inexperience, Scherhant’s running stretched Serbia’s back line relentlessly, and Janelt gave the midfield a snappy, combative edge. Debutants play without the fear of failure that can paralyse established internationals — and Klopp, who has always trusted youth when the data and the training ground backed it, harvested that fearlessness brilliantly.
The players felt it too. “Jürgen is a coach that pulls people along with him,” said goalscorer Bischof, as reported by SuperSport. “We saw that today and I hope it continues into the future.” When your match-winner is talking like that 90 minutes into the experiment, the buy-in is real.
What Comes Next: Sunday’s Revenge Mission Against Surprise Leaders Greece
So where does this leave Group A2? Greece remain the surprise leaders on seven points after their 2-2 draw with the Netherlands, with Germany now up to four, the Dutch on two and Serbia pointless. And here is the delicious part: Germany travel to face Greece on Sunday — the same Greece side that stunned them 1-0 in September and sparked this entire reset.
Sunday is the real test of whether Munich was a turning point or a false dawn. Greece have been the group’s great disruptors, winning away in both Serbia and Germany, and they will smell blood again. But Klopp now has something he lacked a week ago: a benchmark performance, a trusted blueprint, and a squad that knows the manager will act on his words. “That’s how we want to play” is no longer a slogan — there is 90 minutes of video evidence.
Klopp is not the only elite coach rebuilding a giant under the microscope this week — our deep dive on the five tactical fixes Arne Slot would bring to rock-bottom Tottenham covers another fascinating reclamation project. But on Thursday night in Munich, the most scrutinised new reign in international football finally produced the performance its manager has been promising. The crisis talk is over. The Klopp era has its first win — and its first believers.
