There is still about one month to go before the opening of the 2024 European Championship in Germany, and the relevant schedule has been released, and the opening match will start at 3 a.m. Beijing time on June 15, with Germany facing Scotland. The strength of German football today is far from comparable to that of the World Cup 10 years ago, but after all, as a traditional powerhouse with a large number of fans, the opening match will certainly attract much more attention than the previous two European Championships. And compared with the last two World Series, the German team will undoubtedly be more confident this time, because the team is waiting for the return of an important figure, and he is Tony Kroos.
How strong is Cross? After helping Germany win the Hercules Cup in 2014, because of conflicts with Bayern management, he immediately left to join Real Madrid, and now 10 years have passed, and the 34-year-old still firmly occupies the position of the core of the midfield. In terms of honours, Kroos has helped Real Madrid win the Champions League four times, and led Real Madrid to this season's Champions League final in midweek, and his personal hopes of winning the title for the fifth time at Real Madrid are very high. Kroos, on the other hand, helped the team to the Champions League title in the 12/13 season when they faced Borussia Dortmund in the final.
In the 2018 World Cup, Germany had a bad start, and it was Kroos who scored a direct free kick against Sweden to barely survive, of course, because the overall performance was too poor, and the team finally went out of the group. In the last European Championship, Germany reached the quarter-finals, losing 2-0 to England, and Kroos announced his farewell to the national team shortly after the game. At that time, Kroos thought that an old player like him blocked the promotion space of newcomers, and it was better to retire early to make way for Xian. However, the development of German football has stalled, young players have not been able to take the lead, and the successive changes of managers have also caused chaos in the management of the team.
You must know that although Germany has been led by Loew from 2008 to 2014, it has never fallen out of the top three in the World Series, and has successfully won the Hercules Cup. However, neither Loew nor his assistant Flick were able to conquer the European Championships, and the last time Germany won the European Championship was in 1996, when the Germans fought the Czech Republic led by Nedved for 120 minutes, relying on Bierhoff's golden goal to win, and it has been 28 years, and German fans have waited too long. Now, Nagelsmann's German team, after welcoming Kroos back, must be hoping to break the spell and become the ones who will make history.
Euro 2024 has expanded to 24 teams, and Germany's group is not bad, with Scotland, Hungary and Switzerland in the same group, except for Switzerland, which are slightly more difficult to deal with, and the other two teams are not as strong as Germany overall. Of course, the current Germany is not as good as before, and the possibility of overturning in the face of weak brigades is also very great, so we still can't take it lightly. However, there is no need to be too nervous in the first game of Scotland, the two teams have met in the past 6 times, and Germany has won 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, occupying an absolute advantage. Even if Scotland has Premier League stars such as Robertson and McTominay, most of the players are still mediocre, and the German side can be described as star-studded, Musiala, Sane, and Gundogan are the absolute main force of the giants, not to mention Tony Kroos.
Overall, Germany is stronger than Scotland, sitting on the home advantage, and winning the first win in the opening game is not a big problem. As for the team's squad, since the season is not over yet, the state of the players is not completely determined, and there will definitely be variables in the future, Nagelsmann especially needs to solve the problem is to find the right big center forward, which is the foundation of German football, but it has been abandoned in the past few years, which has somewhat affected Germany's dismal results in successive major tournaments.