It’s a cracker: The German national soccer team will face Spain in the European Championship quarter-finals in Stuttgart on Friday (18:00).
With nine wins, nine draws and eight defeats, the record is slightly in Germany’s favor. The SID looks back on seven special duels:
THE PREMIERE, friendly match 1935
May 12, 1935 in Cologne, Germany – Spain 1:2
74,000 spectators in the Müngersdorf stadium want to see the first clash between the two nations. Edmund Conen – soccer historians will remember – puts Germany ahead early on, then Spain turns the game around with a brace from Isidro Langara. It was the start of a great soccer rivalry.
THE WONDER GOAL, WORLD CUP 1966
July 20, 1966 in Birmingham, Germany – Spain 2:1
In the third group game, Germany is trailing 0:1 against the Spaniards, and an early World Cup exit looms. But then came Lothar Emmerich’s big performance. Standing on the sidelines, “Emma” thunders the ball under the crossbar from an acute angle to make it 1-1, and in the final minutes Uwe Seeler secures victory. “I didn’t just go for it, I sensed the situation at lightning speed and instinctively, and luckily I hit the ball perfectly, I got the right angle,” Emmerich said later about his “wonder goal”.
VÖLLER’S KNOT BURSTS, EM 1988
June 17, 1988 in Munich, Germany – Spain 2:0
What is wrong with Rudi Völler? The fans asked themselves this question before the last group game at the 1988 European Championship at home. Völler had not scored for 636 minutes in a DFB shirt and his worries were growing. After half an hour against the Spaniards, the knot finally burst, followed promptly by the second goal in the second half. Germany reached the semi-finals – and celebrated Rudi.
WITHOUT A CHANCE, EM 2008
June 29, 2008 in Vienna, Germany – Spain 0:1
Germany’s hopes of winning a fourth European Championship title are high. But in the final it quickly becomes clear that there will be no black, red and gold party in Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium. The superior Spaniards shone with their tiki-taka game, while Germany lagged behind. In the end it was “only” 0:1 after a goal from Fernando Torres, but the result could have been much clearer. Spain’s dominance begins.
REVENGE MISSED, WORLD CUP 2010
July 7, 2010 in Durban, Germany – Spain 0:1
Two years after their defeat, Germany are thrilled in South Africa – and are looking for revenge. The young DFB team went into the World Cup semi-final with a lot of momentum and took on their almost overpowering opponents. Without success. However, the decision was not made after a perfect ball string, but after a powerful header from Carles Puyol. What remains is the realization that German soccer cannot (yet) keep up with Spanish soccer.
THE DISAPPOINTMENT, Nations League 2020
November 17, 2020 in Seville, Germany – Spain 0:6
“It was a pitch-black day, nothing worked at all. Body tension, tackling, nothing worked. Neither defensively nor offensively, you can’t single anyone out,” was the ruthless verdict of national coach Joachim Löw after the debacle in Seville. The humiliating 0:6 defeat in the Nations League was the highest defeat for a German team since 1931, and only once had Germany lost more heavily: 0:9 against England in 1909.
THE BRIGHT SPOT, WORLD CUP 2022
November 27, 2022 in Al-Khor, Germany – Spain 1:1
The desert World Cup. After the opening defeat against Japan, Germany are also 1-0 down in their second group game and the calls for super joker Niclas Füllkrug are getting louder and louder. In the 70th minute, national coach Hansi Flick fulfilled the fans’ wish – and just 13 minutes later, Füllkrug thundered the ball into the Spanish goal at 118 km/h. With one point, the dream of reaching the round of 16 lives on, but the outcome of this story is well known: elimination after the preliminary round.