Jurgen Klopp spent 92 minutes on the brink of winning his first game as Germany head coach. Then Ruben van Bommel crossed, Cody Gakpo finished, and the Johan Cruijff Arena took the point Germany had spent an hour defending.
Netherlands 1 Germany 1. Klopp's reign begins with a draw he will privately think was a loss, because his side led from the 32nd minute and were three minutes from holding it.
Nmecha's goal, and then nothing
Felix Nmecha scored it, Karim Adeyemi supplied it, and that was the last thing Germany created worth the name. They finished with ten shots and two big chances against the Dutch 22 and four. The expected-goals column read 3.11 to 1.50 in the home side's favour, which is a polite way of saying Germany were hanging on long before Gakpo put them out of their misery.
Virgil van Dijk had already had one ruled out for a foul after 12 minutes. That decision, and the woodwork-and-goalkeeper combination the Dutch kept running into, is most of the reason the scoreline stayed at 0-1 for as long as it did.
Injuries did not help
Kai Havertz went off after 30 minutes with an injury, replaced by Yassin Ebnoutalib. Brian Brobbey followed him off five minutes later for the Netherlands. Klopp then made his own changes on 64, taking off Nmecha and Kevin Schade, and finished the game with Serge Gnabry and Yannik Engelhardt on the pitch.
That is more or less what he promised. Klopp named two almost entirely separate squads for this international break and drew up a list of 57 players before he picked either of them. "It is not important who plays but how someone plays," he said last week. "I expect a lot from the beginning. It could be a bit wild, but I accept that. It just has to be lively."
Wild and lively is one reading of what happened in Amsterdam. Another is that a team without a settled shape ran out of legs.
A point, and a long way to go
The Dutch had 54 per cent of the ball and 44 touches in the German box to Germany's 26. Ronald Koeman's side will feel they should have won more comfortably than a 92nd-minute equaliser suggests. Spanish referee Alejandro Hernandez booked four players and the game never quite boiled over, though Denzel Dumfries and Nadiem Amiri were both cautioned inside the same minute.
Klopp, 59, took this job in July on a reported six million pound salary and has spent most of the time since talking about national mood and "positive patriotism" rather than formations. His second squad, the one containing Florian Wirtz and Aleksandar Pavlovic, plays Serbia later in this break. Germany host Greece on Sunday.
One point from Amsterdam is not a disaster. Conceding in the 92nd minute of your first game in charge, having done very little for an hour, is the sort of thing that sticks to a manager until the next result replaces it.
Match facts: Netherlands 1-1 Germany, UEFA Nations League League A, Round 1, Johan Cruijff Arena, Amsterdam, Thursday 24 September 2026, 19:45 BST. Goals: Felix Nmecha 32 (assist Karim Adeyemi) for Germany; Cody Gakpo 90+2 (assist Ruben van Bommel) for the Netherlands. Virgil van Dijk had a goal disallowed for a foul on 12 minutes. Referee: Alejandro Hernandez (Spain). Ground capacity 55,865. Expected goals: Netherlands 3.11, Germany 1.50. Possession: Netherlands 54%, Germany 46%. Shots: Netherlands 22, Germany 10. Jurgen Klopp's first match as Germany head coach.
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