Nick Woltemade’s first international goal condemned Northern Ireland to a 1-0 World Cup qualifying defeat to Germany at Windsor Park.
Newcastle’s £69million forward turned in David Raum’s 31st-minute corner with the back of his shoulder – unorthodox perhaps but enough to settle a hard-fought contest in which Michael O’Neill’s young side showed no fear against their illustrious opponents on the night of his 100th game in charge.
Julian Nagelsmann spent Sunday insisting he had meant no disrespect to Northern Ireland when discussing their “long ball” tactics last month, but the hosts went toe-to-toe with Germany and saw a Daniel Ballard strike chalked off for offside.
All the same, a seven-game unbeaten run at Windsor Park ended as an 11th straight loss to the Germans left them three points behind both Germany and Slovakia going into the final qualifiers next month. Their safety net of a potential qualifying play-off via the Nations League may yet be needed.
But O’Neill is likely to take heart from another valiant display from a side whose average age at kick-off was under 25. Brodie Spencer replaced the suspended Conor Bradley in the only change from Friday’s 2-0 win over Slovakia.
Northern Ireland were struggling to get out of their half in the early exchanges but out of nowhere had the ball in the net in the 14th minute before an offside flag curtailed celebrations.
Ballard lashed home a loose ball after both Paddy McNair and Jamie Reid failed to connect properly on Bailey Peacock-Farrell’s long free-kick into the box, but McNair was offside when Ballard got the initial flick-on.
Germany slowly regained the upper hand, then gained the lead with their 50th ever goal against Northern Ireland. Woltemade leapt to meet Raum’s corner, and the ball struck him on the back of his shoulder to beat Peacock-Farrell, the goal standing after a VAR check for handball.
Reid should have done better late in the half after Ethan Galbraith cut into the box from the left but, stretching, the Stevenage man shot over, while Ali McCann sent a late strike narrowly wide. In between, Galbraith was booked for fouling Aleksandar Pavlovic, ruling him out of next month’s trip to Slovakia.
Karim Adeyemi should have doubled Germany’s lead less than two minutes into the second half but, clean through on goal, bent his shot the wrong side of Peacock-Farrell’s right-hand post.
Northern Ireland, refreshed up top as Josh Magennis replaced Reid at the break, kept battling, with Shea Charles testing Oliver Baumann from a tight angle before Galbraith rippled the side-netting with a low strike.
At the other end, Peacock-Farrell did well to keep out a deflected strike from Serge Gnabry.
Last month in Cologne, Northern Ireland battled well for 70 minutes but then conceded two late goals as they could not cope with the strength of Germany’s bench in a 3-1 defeat.
This time, they kept up the fight to the end. Galbraith shot narrowly over in the 85th minute and substitute Callum Marshall stung the palms of Baumann three minutes later, but there was no way back.
PA
