It was in the 65th minute at the Frankfurter Arena in a match between Germany and Northern Ireland that the long wait finally came to an end. Head coach Joachim Löw subbed off Lukas Klostermann and brought on Niklas Stark for his international debut in this his fifth call up. “It wasn’t the perfect debut with the mask and all but it was very emotional. The fact that I’ve had to wait so long for this has only made it all the more sweet,” said the debutant after the final whistle on Tuesday evening. It wasn’t just Stark who was successful either, but the entire DFB team who grabbed a 6-1 victory (Serge Gnabry 3, Leon Goretzka 2, Julian Brandt 1) on their way to clinching their qualifying group and securing their place in the group stages of EURO 2020.

Javairo Dilrosun also had reason to celebrate as he scored and incredible stoppage time free kick for the Netherlands U21s as they clinched a 2-1 victory over England U21s. The winger played the entire 90 minutes of the game between these two sides who have a great relationship with one another – Daishawn Redan did not feature. Slovakia were also successful, winning 2-0 in their duel with Azerbaijan. Peter Pekarik played the full 90 and Ondrej Duda was subbed on five minutes before the end. Unfortunately, Slovakia did not manage to qualify directly out of the group as Wales won their game against Hungary 2-0 to secure their qualification. The team must now wait and hope they clinch a win in the playoffs in March 2020. A great international week for the Herthaner was brought to a close by Belgium who won 6-1 against Cyprus. Dedryck Boyata did not feature.