Everything dragged on a little, but at half past one in the night the big party on the 15th floor of the hotel in Ljubljana could finally start properly.

In the Slovenian capital, the entourage of the German U-21 national team crashed.

The team manager had wisely booked an accommodation away from the city center so as not to cause problems during the night as a disturbance of the peace.

As it was, the young footballers and their coaches and supervisors, families and friends, were able to celebrate their great success on Sunday evening until well into the morning: European champions!

Tobias Rabe

Responsible editor for Sport Online.

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    At 11:07 p.m., captain Arne Maier lifted the trophy he had previously received from Aleksander Čeferin, the Slovenian President of the European Football Union.

    The 1-0 win over their peers from Portugal was the culmination of a special year in German football, which was not necessarily expected to achieve this success two years ago when coach Stefan Kuntz started the campaign.

    Other teams seemed better positioned, and few of the German candidates had regular places in the Bundesliga in their early years.

    But that didn't matter.

    The team spirit more than made up for the individual inferiority. The way they cheered when there was not only the victorious 1-0 to cheer, but also clapped and cheered each other over and over again when one of their members had put another piece of the puzzle on the way to the overall picture over a run or a won duel was extreme impressive. And they can play football too. A strong pass from Ridle Baku from the half-right position found center forward Lukas Nmecha, who technically played around the goalkeeper in the 49th minute and pushed the ball into the short corner.

    “There is a lot of talk about market values,” said Nmecha, referring to higher-priced talents from other nations. “But in the end we were the best, that's why we won.” Nmecha is a good example of the difficult path from talent to professional. As a child, the man from Hamburg moved to England with his family. There he was trained at Manchester City. The 22-year-old has not played more than two games in the first team. A loan to VfL Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga was ended prematurely. He only made his breakthrough last season in the smaller league in Belgium. Nmecha scored 18 goals in 37 games for RSC Anderlecht.

    Coach Kuntz, who reached the final of the European Championship for the third time in a row with a German U-21 team - there were wins in 2017 and 2021, a defeat in 2019 - knows all the résumés with the ups and downs of the young players. At a late hour, Kuntz recalled the special story of the year, “that they had particularly little credit for him”, and was all the more proud: “This team spirit was impressive. I've rarely looked forward to a celebration as much as I do today, ”he said. Afterwards we took the bus to the hotel with a beer and a cup. “This year has deservedly become European Champion. The guys who played here are very special. "

    One of these "boys" is Niklas Dorsch. In the quarter-finals against Denmark he was absent due to a yellow card suspension. He returned in the semi-final against the Netherlands before showing a strong performance in midfield in the final. “This is so cool, I don't know what to say. Everyone fought for 90 minutes. We have shown that we can also play football and not just fight, ”he said, who like Nmecha in Belgium at KAA Gent, found his early football luck this season at TV station ProSieben. “What's going on here is awesome. How we played this final is unbelievable. "

    "We are in the history books of the DFB and nobody can take that away from us," said Baku, who already played in the senior national team but was not nominated for their EM. But that didn't matter that night. “We are very proud that we as a year old can be part of the history of the DFB.” David Raum, who is moving from Fürth to Hoffenheim, saw that like this: “At that moment, everything that has been done has been worth it. Every footballer dreams of representing his country at a European Championship. There can be nothing more beautiful than this title. Today in the final we got over the will again. "

    At the moment of exuberance, coach Kuntz was the one who didn't lose sight of the bigger picture. “We are now European champions, but you have to put that into perspective. The Netherlands had seven players in the senior team and the English had nine. For us it is maximally Kai Havertz, who unfortunately never played the U-21 national team, ”he said with a view to the future of German football, which does not seem as rosy as the success of Ljubljana might suggest. “We're not going to cover up the problem with the talent shortage or the less than optimal training. But we represented values ​​of German football that anyone can say is cool. "

    For Kuntz and the team, the next task will soon be waiting this summer: the Olympics in Tokyo. It is still unclear who of the winners from Slovenia will be there, especially since older players can also be nominated for the games. Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the Ivory Coast are waiting for the preliminary round at the end of July. In September, the new U-21 age group will start qualifying for the 2023 European Championship. But none of that mattered for the time being. “I know ties remain. It was the same with the teams from 2017 and 2019, ”said Kuntz and started the party.