Against France, Emre Can had to try as a striker in the last few minutes to avert the defeat.

It was an unfamiliar experience even for someone who has played almost every position.

The fact that Can now appeared at the national team's press conference on Thursday had nothing to do with Dortmund's new role for this European Championship.

The occupation of the podium with him and Matthias Ginter was rather a defensive line-up, and possibly not only because of the tasks on the field: none of the opinion leaders should or wanted to speak after the tournament failed on Tuesday.

Christian Kamp

Sports editor.

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    What Can and Ginter reported gave little indication of how the team and their coach processed the opening game.

    Nevertheless, they spread optimism for the groundbreaking game against defending champions Portugal on Saturday.

    Can was asked at the beginning what made him confident that not only the commitment and attitude would be right, but also the result.

    The answer: "Because we have a great team."

    The 1-0 draw against France was "not our worst game" and: "We can do more, and we still believe in ourselves." Ginter had sounded similar before when he said that the initial disappointment was something has given way to other things, a "now-especially-feeling to look ahead".

    The two also agreed that the offensive performance could be expanded, but they did not want to get involved in the intensely discussed system question. Instead, they listed what the individual players could bring in to develop more goal danger - regardless of the formation in which the team is on the field. Indications as to whether Joachim Löw will play again in 3-4-3 against Portugal or return to a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3, they only gave insofar as they noticed that this would also be the case after the opponent judge.


    In this respect, it would at least be possible that the back three was specially tailored to the opening opponent. The French would have played "as we expected," said Ginter, they even "relatively often left spaces that we played too slowly or not purposefully". For everything else, the Mönchengladbacher, who could face Cristiano Ronaldo against Portugal, referred to the guideline competence of the national coach: "Ultimately, it is not that we make an uprising if we do not like something."

    At the start of the morning training, the atmosphere on the pitch was good, no different than on the other days. However, Löw will have to do without Marcel Halstenberg until further notice. The Leipzig defender had a muscle injury in his right thigh on Wednesday, so he should be out on Saturday - and possibly beyond.