Time for the Turniermannschaft as Nagelsmann’s Germany look to take control of Euro 2024 again 

The sunny little market square is in Oberkassel, a district of Dusseldorf, which has reverberated to Albanian, Ukrainian but mostly Scottish roars these past two weeks.

Thursday and Friday however served as the first junction of Euro 2024, a jumping-off point for those three nations and five more.

On Saturday, the tournament returns with the weight and nerve-twitching tension that makes knockout football so damn addictive. It returns with the host nation in the prime time slot. Which brings us back to Oberkassel.

On the western banks of the Rhein it is at a remove from Dusseldorf’s traditional heart on the other side. During World War II this worked very much in its favour. While 90 per cent of the city’s housing stock was decimated in over 200 Allied bombing raids, Oberkassel, just a couple of minutes away, remained remarkably unscathed.

The numbers are staggering: on August 1 1942 alone, British squadrons dropped 14,000 incendiary bombs on Dusseldorf. Yet in the entire war Oberkassel was, reportedly, hit by less than 20 bombs total.

It means on a sleepy Friday morning you can wander and marvel at something truly rare in this country: original historic city structures, Oberkassel home to some fine examples of Jugendstil architecture, Germany’s answer to Art Nouveau.

Being able to take a building at face value here is a luxury. During the hectic postwar restoration of flattened German cities, some historic sites were rebuilt in their original image (with little pointers that tell you it’s a redo), others abandoned in the name of clunky modernism.

More recently, nationalist campaigning has seen some iconic old sites belatedly and controversially return. All told, as an outsider you come here and can’t quite tell if the physical embodiments of Germany are new, old, oldy new or newly old.

On the streets that cut through these confounding towns, Germany jerseys have slowly become more visible over the past 48 hours, perhaps helped by the thinning out, an exodus of some of the more significant invading hordes.

As Euro 2024 has blown apart one German myth (its transports efficiencies) another persisted. Julian Nagelsmann’s side were up and at it as early as the Barbarossaplatz vendors, putting their towels down for the knockout stages fully ten days ago.

Their tournament has, in a way, continued without them, Germany pushed off to the side as Turkey, the second home team, Austria and Georgia hogged headlines, as Spain moved towards favouritism and as England, France, Italy and the Netherlands moved towards nihilism.

Now they’re back and it’s time for them to let us know whether we can judge them as we see them in front of us, or they need closer inspection. Is this a new Germany team, like the beloved Germanys of old? Or is it more akin to flawed recreations?

In his brilliant 2015 book Das Reboot, football writer Raphael Honigstein charted how Germany had reinvented itself to win the 2014 World Cup, a key juncture the 2006 version hosted here, the Sommermärchen. Many of the subtle delights of the book are the Germanisms littered throughout.

“Before the advent of the dark ages of 1998–2004,” Honigstein writes, “Germany were known as a ‘Turniermannschaft’, a tournament team.”

In a bid to claw their way out of an arguably more prolonged dark age, Nagelsmann’s side need to turn back into that Turniermannschaft on Saturday night in Dortmund. The last 16 clash with Denmark offers the chance of a first German knockout stage win of any description for a quite astounding eight years.

The reconstruction project Nagelsmann has undertaken has been hectic in its own way, yet on a barnstorming opening night all looked to click perfectly into place, Scotland swept away in Munich. What followed in the next two Group A games has shown that the foundations are not yet fully set.

The dynamism dropped off bit by bit, Kai Havertz finding less fluidity as the central attacker, which dulled the influence of Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz, even as captain Ilkay Gundogan and Toni Kroos continued to shine behind them.

The clamour across the front pages of newspapers here all week has been for the imposing presence of Niclas Füllkrug to be deployed against a physically imposing Danish defence.

Bild has reported that Germany have trained with Füllkrug as a starter but intriguingly Havertz too, meaning Wirtz may drop to the bench. Jonathan Tah is suspended so Nico Schlotterbeck will come in as one certain change.

It was Füllkrug’s towering injury-time header against Switzerland which ensured Germany stayed unbeaten and topped Group A. The goal also kept Nagelsmann’s side on the top half of the knockout stage bracket.

As we all face into two weeks of tournament tension, that half of the draw dominates so much chatter. But before Germany can even begin to think of Spain they must shake off the failures of the past three major tournaments.

The Danes may be fading but they are still 21st in the world, five spots below Germany. It wouldn’t just be a first knockout win since 2016 but one which feels, on paper and pedigree, impressive.

Up for press duties Thursday, Schlotterbeck spoke of the need to “have control of the [Danes]”. Pointedly, he referenced “Turkish and Albanian fans” making “some real noise” in Dortmund and this being the time for the host nation to do likewise.

Along with everything else on the line, it feels as though retaking control of the narrative of their tournament is on the line for Nagelsmann’s side too.

The coach’s own narrative, a mantra he’s repeated is: “Believe. Be as one. All of Germany is behind you.”

Saturday night will tell us if we can what Nagelsmann has built at face value.