The next few weeks might go on to prove that the most important phone calls of Julian Nagelsmann’s career came from a mixture of desperation and inspiration. Those would be the ones he made in November, starting in the aftermath of a game when it had all gone so very wrong.
That was the evening he had gone out on a limb. Even for a friendly, Turkey in Berlin was an important fixture for Germany, Nagelsmann’s first at home, and it was a chance to respond to those who doubted if this guy, younger than his goalkeeper, was the right fella to set them straight again.
His questionable response was to try a little experiment, putting a right-footed No 10 on the left of his attacking three, a forward at left-back and choosing a pair of midfielders whose immense individual qualities rarely seemed to mesh together. With an early goal, all was well.
But then their control in the middle slipped. Suddenly, Germany were chasing and became a bit panicky, lacking the sort of player who could remain composed in a storm, when all around was moving too fast. They lost and the experiment failed.
Gareth Southgate is probably well aware of the game, because he’s always watching one somewhere. But he’s just lived it, too, right down to the detailing of those square pegs and their round holes and the consequences of experiments that fall flat.
His side didn’t lose that game to Denmark, but they look lost. They are fumbling, grappling, unsure where to turn and in whom to trust. How deep is the problem? Will one tweak of inspiration bring everything else into place?
How he must hope it is the latter, which is why, before we come to Jude Bellingham, we should go back to those Nagelsmann phone calls. They were to Toni Kroos, of course, and the chats went on for months until, finally, a breakthrough came in February.
Three years had passed since his international retirement, so exasperated was Kroos by Germany’s defeat by England at the Euros in 2021 and the malaise it represented. But he said he would come back for a last dance, aged 34.
‘Let’s rock,’ he eventually told Nagelsmann, and today it feels like the answer that fixed an awful lot of issues. They might even be favourites now and there was talk of crisis not so long ago. A special player in the right spot can do that.
Southgate knows it all too well, because his dear England just cannot provide him with the right midfielder. If only there was a number in his phone that held the same power to cast a bat signal on to the dark clouds overhead. It might just be the regret he nurtures long beyond his tenure in that hothouse. It is certainly the one that has crept from his thoughts and into microphones with some regularity over the years, and again this week.
He just needs that one natural midfielder who pulls all other strands together. That midfielder whose mind is always clear, even in chaos. One who has the innate sense to know who is where and, more importantly, where they will be four passes from now.
One who knows that if you roll a few short balls to the right — simple balls, harmless balls, Sidepass Toni balls — you might coax the slightest gap on the left. One who has a grandmaster’s eye for subtle manipulations and can wait, calmly, diligently, until just enough pieces have moved before sending the killer ball through that space.
There aren’t many deep-lying players in recent eras who can murder with such grace when everything else has become so very fast and crowded. Xavi could. Sergio Busquets and Luka Modric, too, and Rodri might be in their company if his trajectory keeps to its current path.
They are the orchestrators of greatness and trophies. They are the men behind Messi, Ronaldo, Haaland. They are the thinkers who hold that rarest of ability to slow time when others are in a rush, and I’ve attended two matches in the past couple of months which inspired a thought that Kroos might be the best thinker in the thinking game.
The more recent was Germany against Hungary on Wednesday. He was majestic. His positioning, which fluctuated from deep in midfield, to right of middle, to left-back, was less relevant than his knack for dictating games from wherever he planted his feet.
When Hungarians thundered in his direction, which they did with force and speed and numbers, they didn’t seem to realise their complicity in his plans. Closing his space was freeing more for Jamal Musiala, for Ilkay Gundogan, for Florian Wirtz in a Nagelsmann team that has succeeded where Southgate has fallen short by shaping so many attacking wonders into a unit.
One man was the secret and Nagelsmann knew it when he picked up the phone. Kroos is control. Kroos is a chap who once described his greatest blessing as never feeling nervous. Kroos is a player who can leave his toe in the fire longer than anyone else and has the technical skill to burn anyone who gets too close.
That brings to mind the other game I saw and a clearer example. It was the Champions League semi-final, Bayern Munich against Real Madrid, a real dogfight and no space to be had. But then there was Kroos.
With the ball at his feet and 24 minutes played, he waited, he scanned, he gestured to Vinicius Junior to come closer, and then, when enough bodies shifted, he threaded a ball of perfect weight through the tiniest channel behind Kim Min-jae. Vinicius didn’t have to interrupt a single stride and met it at full speed. Kroos had composed a painting in his mind and the finish was only the final stroke.
One thing I found interesting about that act of orchestration, and only noticed on the replays, is that Bellingham was applauding before Vinicius had even reached the pass. He also has that gift of seeing pictures in his mind. He holds the same assuredness that no stage is too big for him. That imperviousness to stress. He is a rainbow of talents, this Birmingham kid who was so good as a No 4, a No 8 and a No 10 that they put 22 on his shirt.
Maybe that has been a problem here in Germany. England look to him to do too much, such is the need to keep him in the No 10 kill zone, rooted in the thought that if it works for Real Madrid only a fool would tinker. But it wouldn’t be a fool who tries it against Slovenia on Tuesday.
Not now when so much optimism has drained away. Not when momentum is so needed and so attainable. Not when it would free Phil Foden to play where he belongs at No 10. Not when you could also use the chain reaction to solve the width problem by then putting a true winger on left. I’d suggest Anthony Gordon, because he goes by on the outside and Cole Palmer prefers to drift inland.
For Bellingham, it might seem like a demotion, from batman to commissioner. But it takes a genius to play like Kroos and almost no one in the recent history of the game has managed it. If any Englishman could get even remotely close, it would be Bellingham.
He rocked in a deeper position at Borussia Dortmund and he has the brain and the feet to make England stronger in three positions by switching his here.
Southgate doesn’t need to make a phone call to be more like Germany. He just needs to make a bold one.
A personal highlight away from the stadiums at a wonderful tournament was joining a game of park football with guys from three or four nations in Stuttgart. A low point was the suspected broken toe following a challenge from a large, white-haired Scot channelling his inner Colin Hendry. That assumes Hendry ever favoured sipping from brown glass bottles between acts of violence.
