This young man's faux pas was received by the national coach like a pedagogical through ball.

After the Freiburg debutant Nico Schlotterbeck had provided numerous samples of his talent, his self-confidence and his dominant charisma on the football field for 92 minutes in the Sinsheim international match against Israel, he made a lapse late on Saturday evening shortly before the end that frustrated Hansi Flick.

In his own penalty area, central defender Schlotterbeck wasn't careful enough to keep the ball under control, so his opponent Yonatan Cohen was able to steal the object of desire from him.

The 1.92 meter long dynamic player, who had previously made a fantastic debut both in his core department and in his forward drive, for example with excellent through passes to Kai Havertz or the strong David Raum, now no longer hit the ball but the legs of the Israelis.

Cohen, who had thus given his team the only opportunity worth mentioning to score a goal, then went for the penalty kick – and failed at Frankfurt goalkeeper Trapp, who parried the shot in flight.

It remained a 2-0 victory thanks to the goals of the two Chelsea pros Havertz with a header after Raum's corner (36th minute) and Timo Werner with a dust collector after Ilkay Gündogan's free kick (45+1).

Thomas Müller, who came on as a substitute in the second half, missed the 3-0 when he shot the penalty kick for the Germans after Sun Menahem's foul on Lukas Nmecha (89th) against the post.

"This must not happen to me"

The possible final points in this international match at the start of the World Cup year were not there either, but offered Flick whether Schlotterbeck's dropouts the right opportunity to call the Swabian daredevil Schlotterbeck to order for his brief lack of concentration.

"At a World Cup, something like that can be deadly, at this level you have to be fully concentrated for ninety minutes," said the national coach about the blackout of the otherwise perfect newcomer to his team.

Schlotterbeck was immediately insightful after Flick's scolding and accused himself with sentences like, "That mustn't happen to me" or "I'm sorry for the team, I have to thank Kevin for saving the penalty".

Flick, the meticulous leader of his team, did not feel like too much praise after the eighth win in the eighth game under his direction, also for pedagogical reasons.

At the German start in the year of the World Cup in Qatar, three days before the classic duel with the Dutch national team in Amsterdam on Tuesday (8.45 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the national football team and on ARD), he was primarily concerned with developing the senses for the next , sharpen much heavier task.

So Joachim Löw's successor said, "I'm not one who always singles out players".

Against the seventy-seventh in the world rankings, the head coach, who lives not far from Sinsheim in Bammental, liked the high pressure and courage of his attacking team, but on the other hand he rightly complained that "the efficiency was a bit lacking, we still have room for improvement". .

Especially in the better first half, the two goal scorers Havertz and Werner missed further 1a opportunities when they either failed due to the strong Israeli goalkeeper Ofir Marciano or were not so precise with the shot.

Flick, who thinks highly of the attacker, knows that Werner is going through difficult times at Chelsea this season, and not only because of a corona infection in January, which got him "a little worse". .

"We are there to give him playing time," said the sometimes strict, sometimes caring national coach.

After the sixth goal that Werner scored on Saturday as the top scorer under Flick's direction, he also noted that the quick center forward "wasn't quite in the game in terms of rhythm".

What isn't happening at the moment should be back soon, since Timo Werner in top form can become an important factor at the World Cup.

On Saturday, when Flick looked at his 1b team without numerous regulars, it was all about the first findings in the World Cup year.

This included the casting of two new national players, the conspicuous Schlotterbeck and the still inconspicuous Mainz midfielder Anton Stach, and two returnees such as the solid defensive midfielder Julian Weigl and Julian Draxler, who does not yet look like a hot World Cup candidate.

Will they be allowed to come back when the time comes to put together the first choice for the big tasks of the year?

Flick didn't have to think about that in detail on Saturday in the sighting game against an opponent from the middle class of football.

Flick, a winner as a coach at FC Bayern Munich 2021, is aiming for the World Cup title in Qatar in November and December.

That's why he's been scrutinizing his chosen ones in Sinsheim quite meticulously and critically.

If you want to be at the top, you can't afford false generosity.