"Coming back having grasped something after a defeat" — what Xavi Hernández's and Klopp's respective debuts ask of us
Two 'new faces' gather at Johan Cruyff Arena
On a night in Amsterdam, it feels as though something is already moving before the match even begins.
UEFA Nations League A, Group 2: Netherlands vs Germany.
On the pitch at Johan Cruyff Arena, both national teams carry the word 'first' with them.
For Netherlands manager Xavi Hernández, this is his first official match in charge of the national team.
Germany's Jürgen Klopp is trying to work out exactly where his side stands on this big stage.
Neither of them has an answer yet.
That is what makes this match more than just a friendly international fixture.
The names Xavi chose, and the ones he didn't
The first squad list announced by Xavi Hernández brought a quiet sense of surprise.
Young Eredivisie players received their first call-ups: Ruben van Bommel of PSV and Quilindschy Hartman... wait, actually Feyenoord's player.
Meanwhile, Memphis Depay's name was not on the list.
Choosing not to call someone up carries just as much meaning as choosing to call someone up.
What reasons lay behind it isn't something we can know just by looking from the outside.
Still, we can sense how Xavi, stepping into the entirely different role of national team manager after his long career at Barcelona, chose to take his first step.
He chose players with current momentum rather than proven names.
Whether that was the right choice, no one can say yet.
But there is intent behind that choice.
The weight of 'choosing'
Whenever a coach chooses players, that choice always comes bundled with a decision of who not to choose.
Leaving out an experienced player takes courage.
Bringing in a young player also means accepting risk.
What criteria Xavi used to build this list, what shape the map in his head took—
that may not become clear even once the match is over.
Even so, the manager carries that map forward into the next match.
Marc-André ter Stegen's 'return'
There is a story on the German side too.
Marc-André ter Stegen spent a long time at Barcelona, went through a difficult period, and then transferred to Ajax.
And Jürgen Klopp has called the now 32-year-old goalkeeper back as Germany's undisputed number one.
As, in effect, the successor to Manuel Neuer.
What does this moment mean for ter Stegen?
There was a stretch when everything he had built at Barcelona seemed at risk of crumbling, and yet he rebuilt himself at another club and made his way back to the national team.
A career path that didn't follow the expected order has brought him to this place now.
Sometimes taking the long way round changes a person
In football, there are always players who manage to walk the shortest path, while others go through a period when things don't go as planned before finally returning to the big stage.
What ter Stegen felt and rebuilt at Ajax might be understood better by watching how he stands in this match than by following the words of any interview.
Before the result, his bearing itself says something.
What Klopp is trying to build
Germany, under Jürgen Klopp, currently sit top of Group 2 in the Nations League.
However, at the most recent World Cup, after a 7-1 rout of Curaçao, they lost to Ecuador and drew with Paraguay, failing to advance from the group.
A big win and an early exit coexisted within the same tournament.
How to make sense of this instability. If Klopp regards this as a team still being built, then this match too is a continuation of that experiment.
The front-line combination of Florian Wirtz, Jamal Musiala, and Kai Havertz is itself a kind of hypothesis.
Whether that hypothesis is correct can only be known by playing more matches.
A 'process in progress' that Japan can learn from
A manager changes. The way players are chosen changes. Tactics change.
Every time, voices ask, 'Is this really going to be okay?'
That's true in Japan, and it's true in every country in the world.
But what Klopp's Germany is doing right now is probably less about producing quick answers and more about building a foundation.
A scoreline like 7-1 catches the eye. But it's often only after the failures that follow that you can see what's truly needed.
In youth development as much as in coaching in general, it's not unusual for the 'experience of things not going well' that comes after a big win to carry greater long-term significance.
What is being tested in the Nations League
The Nations League moves at a different rhythm than the World Cup or the Euros.
It carries more tension than a friendly, and is better suited to experimentation than a major tournament.
This match between group leaders Germany and third-placed Netherlands carries, on paper, the context of a standings battle.
But for both sides, it means more than that.
For Xavi, it's his first 'real test'; for Klopp, it's a chance to see whether his blueprint actually works.
Netherlands stand here with a new look after their World Cup exit to Morocco.
Germany, too, are here having gone through their own experience of elimination.
Both teams are trying to take their first step after defeat.
How to walk after losing
When children play football, how they carry themselves after losing a match can affect their future growth.
Do they end the day discouraged, or do they take something home with them?
It's hard for adults to teach that judgment in a hurry.
The sight of Netherlands and Germany players standing here after their World Cup exits shows that the same path is walked even at the top level.
Stories of players who grabbed something after defeat and came back stay in memory far longer than the scoreline of any match.
From a night in Amsterdam, each side moves forward
The Johan Cruyff Arena that Xavi Hernández watches from outside the touchline is a different landscape from the one where he himself once played countless times.
Once his first match as manager is over, he must already start thinking about the next squad list.
How Ruben van Bommel and the Feyenoord player performed tonight will likely be jotted down in the margins of his notebook.
Ter Stegen will stand in goal again in the next match.
Klopp will replay tonight's footage in his mind on the bus.
By the morning after this match, both teams will already be preparing for what comes next.
Questions to understand the context around this match
What can be taken home after defeat
When children come back to the bench after losing a match, each of their expressions is different. Some drag their feet as they return, while others come back with a look on their face as if confirming something to themselves. When you speak to them, the latter usually remember 'that moment'—where the decision was delayed, what they want to do next time. It's these children who change by the next match.
Players who return to the pitch under the national flag after being eliminated from the World Cup are walking the same path. On the map that Xavi and Klopp begin drawing tonight, where they place the experience of defeat is etched into it. Stories of players who grabbed something after defeat and came back stay with us far longer than any scoreline. For anyone for whom football has been part of their life, there is surely a scene like this etched somewhere inside them.
After leaving football at 22, I long didn't know what I had actually taken away from it. The fact remains that I never turned pro. But it was only years later that I realized that period of things not working out had shaped the way I see things now.
Watching a player return to the big stage by way of another club, I feel there's something that only reaches those who chose one path and walked it again after failure. Has there been a moment when you realized that the time you started again after something didn't work out was what shaped who you are now?
- What ter Stegen's 'mere two matches' asks of us: how to face choice, hesitation, and injury
- Xavi Hernández's appointment at Netherlands, Romero's transfer, Frosinone's strategy—what the 2025 summer transfer market teaches us about the essence of choice
- Football thinking that makes the standards and struggles of the "one who chooses/the one who is chosen" personal, learning from Ancelotti as he agonises over whether to call up Neymar for the World Cup
