Hansi Flick is not a rhetorical fireworker.

That saves him from exaggerating his judgments in the negative as in the positive.

After the arduous start of his tenure as national coach and successor to Joachim Löw, he assessed the 2-0 start in the Group J World Cup qualifier against the bottom-of-the-ranked Liechtenstein, who had no points or a win, in Sankt Gallen more positively than the professional critics of the German national soccer team.

Also in order not to make his players brood, also to give them courage for the second test, also to evaluate his premiere in the overall context of the joint work that has just begun. So in Flick's eyes a lot was useful and in need of improvement at the same time, which he had seen in the first work sample after just three training units.

On Sunday, when the three-time world champion in Stuttgart against the up to then group first Armenia with a whim 6: 0 after the goals of Gnabry (6th / 16th minute), Reus (35th), Werner (45th), Hofmann ( 52nd) and debutant Adeyemi (90th + 1) had won and catapulted himself back to first place in this lightest of all qualifying groups, Flick initially commented on his team's performance in a similarly anti-cyclical manner as after the lack of ideas three days earlier. He initially curbed his enthusiasm when he said sentences like, "The team can be happy about their performance, but from Tuesday we have to concentrate again, we have a game in Iceland ahead of us". (Game on Wednesday, 8.45 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for World Cup qualification and on RTL).

In fact, in the ninety plus three minutes before that, his players had delighted the 18,000 admitted spectators in the Stuttgart stadium from start to finish with the enthusiasm with which they had upgraded their work to a freestyle with stars.

The players spoiled the fans with the dedication of how they solved their task and fulfilled their assignments.

The new strength and the fresh self-confidence that emanated from this team after a lightning start, which was immediately rewarded with worth seeing hits, triggered a high mood in the Swabian World Cup arena, as recently only the outlier in the Munich 4-2 victory over Portugal in the European Championship group stage.

The rude awakening followed with the early retirement in the unadorned duel with the English.

But this time it could be that the promise of Sunday evening will be followed by other performances full of intensity and energy. If only because Flick's football looks very different from the recently discouraged Löw football. With the new national coach, the opponent's penalty area is attacked early and briskly by counter-pressing. In addition, the courage to attack with speed football, dashing combinations and deep runs are systematically required so that the effort is worthwhile. The two direct hits that Munich's Serge Gnabry presented in his hometown of Stuttgart were symptomatic of this and what the national coach called an "impulse".

The Armenians, who came to Germany to show their new class, turned out to be the ideal opponent because of their defensive permeability, in order to be able to vividly demonstrate the new spirit and fresh courage in the German team. The beautifully accurate passes like that of the outstanding playmaker Goretzka on Gnabry before the 1-0 or heel assists like Werner on Reus before his goal to make it 3-0 exemplarily reflected the new joy of playing. The Germans' revived lust for battle also delighted the audience, for example when the again very hardworking Leroy Sané won a defensive duel in his own penalty area against an Armenian (48th).

"We wanted to show a game that inspires people and that gives them joy, no more, no less," said the national coach, who was thawing more and more from sentence to sentence, describing the collective plan on Sunday.

Flick enjoyed the atmospheric communal experience on Sunday.

"We got goose bumps, we haven't seen that for a long time."

After years of noticeable alienation between an often joyless national team and their distanced fans, Stuttgart's alliance was something like the main win in a game in which the Germans at least showed that they could soon be reckoned with again could.

The team concluded an all-round successful evening with a lap of honor. Goretzka found the cooperation between players and spectators as “balm for the soul. I've seen shining eyes and smiling faces everywhere. That's what football has to be about. "