Ten previous meetings. Seven Greek defeats, three draws, no wins. It was a sequence long enough that nobody in Augsburg was treating Sunday as a trap, and for 73 minutes nobody had cause to. Then Dimitrios Kourbelis hit a shot from the edge of the box, it flicked off Joshua Kimmich on the way through, and the record was gone.
Germany dominated the ball and found nothing to do with it. Jurgen Klopp had made heavy changes to his side and turned to Florian Wirtz from the bench, and still nothing went in.
Two games into the job, the new head coach is without a win.
Klopp does not pretend it was acceptable
Klopp did not talk around it. "I could have lived with us not winning but you cannot lose such a game," he said. Then came the mitigation, which was fair enough: "We have been together for a week now, all mixed together, and that needs time." And then the line that will get replayed if this run goes on much longer. "The result is not cool but it is absolutely part of the process."
It was his second match in charge. The first, on Thursday, ended 1-1 against the Netherlands, and at the time that looked like a reasonable place to begin: a decent side, away from home, a point. A home defeat by a team ranked 41st in the world reads rather differently.
Why this counts as a proper upset
Germany sit 12th. For Greece, this is the biggest scalp by ranking they have taken since they went to Wembley in 2024 and beat an England team then ranked fourth. That night got filed away as a freak result, the sort of thing that happens once. Two of them inside two years starts to look like something this Greek side can actually do on purpose.
The practical effect is that Greece go back to the top of Nations League Group 2, having already beaten Serbia on Thursday. Six points from two. Nobody had them reaching the quarter-finals when the group was drawn; they are now well placed to do it.
The job Klopp walked into
Klopp, 59, signed a four-year deal in July. He replaced Julian Nagelsmann, who resigned after Germany went out of the World Cup in the last 32 to Paraguay. That result still hangs over the squad. Count back from Sunday and the last time Germany won anything was Ivory Coast, second group game, summer. Four matches ago.
None of that is Klopp's doing. A week together is not long enough to change how a national team behaves, and he was right to say so. But the Nations League does not pause while a coach settles in, and Greece are the ones in front.
Match facts: Germany 0-1 Greece, Uefa Nations League Group 2, Augsburg, Sunday 27 September 2026. Scorer: Dimitrios Kourbelis 74 (deflected off Joshua Kimmich). Germany are winless in four matches. Greece lead Group 2 after two games.
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