Julian Nagelsmann appears to tell Kevin Trapp to pretend he's injured in Austria 2-0 Germany | OneFootball

You would think that becoming the national team manager about a year before they host a major international tournament would be an exciting opportunity. But in reality, Julian Nagelsmann appears to have inherited a bit of a mess since taking over as Germany head coach.

He arrived in September to replace Hansi Flick who had overseen a pretty disastrous tenure in which won just 12 of his 25 games. This included a group-stage exit at the Qatar World Cup and ended with four losses in his final five games with Die Mannschaft.

To put things in perspective, there has been no pressure on Germany in recent times as they have automatically qualified for Euro 2024 as the host nation. And yet, despite not having to play any competitive games, they were playing so badly that Flick became the first Germany boss to be sacked since the role was created in 1926.

Germany winless in three after Austria defeat

The ship has not really been steadied under Nagelsmann so far either. While he won his first game in charge against the United States, he then drew with Mexico 2-2. And in the current international break, they lost 3-2 at home against Turkey and then tasted defeat yet again, losing 2-0 when coming up against Austria.

This match in Vienna was particularly poor as they fell behind to a Marcel Sabitzer goal scored after 29 minutes. Trailing at the break, Leroy Sané came out for the second half like a man possessed but in all the wrong ways. The Bayern Munich winger completely lost his head after fouling Phillipp Mwene, and managed to get himself a foolish red card when shoving the fullback in the face with two hands following a heated confrontation between the two.

Nagelsmann tells Trapp to fake injury

Just minutes after the red card, it seemed as though goalkeeper Trapp was happily about to take a goal kick when he suddenly got a message from the sidelines. As you can see in the video below, Nagelsmann was furiously gesturing at him to go to ground. The German obeyed the orders and was soon retrieving treatment for an injury despite not appearing to actually have any fitness issues. This is backed up by the fact that Trapp was able to finish the game.

What's more, moments after this incident, Julian Brandt was substituted off for defender Benjamin Henrichs – and he then passed a note to Kai Havertz. With this being the case, it's easy to come to the conclusion that Nagelsmann just wanted to buy a little time before working out how to reshape his team, who were down to ten men, and then pass on that information to his players, and so asked his goalkeeper to fake an injury.

Seeing as it was only a friendly, it might seem a little odd for the Germans to be bending the rules such as is but in fairness, they don't have any competitive matches until next summer's Euros begin on their home soil, so they have to take every game as seriously as possible. For now, though, it does seem as though much is going to plan. Captain Ilkay Gundogan summed it up well when speaking to the press after the game, explaining that "there is frustration and disappointment' amongst the players and staff right now.