Adam Szalai stuns Germany to fire Hungary to shock Nations League win

If Hansi Flick was perturbed, he was doing a fairly good job of hiding it. As he watched his side toil in their last home fixture before the World Cup, he simply paced down the sideline, hands in pockets, as if taking a stroll in a park. Is there a word for the intense, borderline-irrational calm that overcomes German teams in the buildup to major tournaments? If so, it’s probably German.

The irony, perhaps, was that Germany were beaten by the one thing they do not possess, the one thing they have arguably never won a major tournament without: a seasoned old-school No 9. The veteran Adam Szalai is 34 years old, and could probably try to recreate his winning goal for 34 more without finding the net. Still, his flash of inspiration was enough to give Hungary a famous win, and keep them on course for unlikely Nations League glory.

What of Germany? Do we start worrying yet? Certainly they improved and created enough in the second half to suggest that there are still extra gears to be found. But there was a lack of killer instinct, a curious absence of purpose, the sense that they are still somehow less than the sum of their parts. The England game on Monday should give us a better idea of their progress.

Of course they don’t really do introspection here, and certainly nothing on the scale of panic. Even Szalai’s early goal was met not with tantrums and mutinies from the Leipzig crowd but the sort of disinterested shrug with which one might greet a pitch invader. Unexpected, sure. Unwelcome, certainly. But ultimately no more than a wrinkle in the time-fabric, a minor inconvenience before normal service would inevitably be resumed.

This kind of self-assurance has clear advantages. It protects German sides from the sort of