Postgame reactions: Germany’s Robin Gosens talks about his man of the match performance against Portugal

Robin Gosens received a fair amount of criticism after Germany’s Euro 2020 opener against France — including shouts from Bayern Munich fans for his clash with Benjamin Pavard. However, fans of Die Mannschaft are now singing his praises after a superb performance against Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal. After the match, the Atalanta player spoke about his game:

“It feels unreal. For me, an unbelievable evening. A game that we absolutely had to win. A goal, involved in two goals, you can’t wish for more. I felt well integrated into the game from the start, was looked for a lot by my teammates — of course I’m happy about that. At the end of the day: world class!”

World class is not something that many have used to characterize the German National Team in recent years, but after a strong performance, Germany have their first three points of the tournament. On today’s victory, Gosens said, “I think we rewarded ourselves offensively — today we went one better in our offensive performance. The fans celebrated, we pushed each other. That’s awesome! We want to enjoy that — and then we’ll go full throttle against Hungary.”

Gosens was also asked if he had a feeling that this would be his game. He replied, “I already felt it yesterday. All the camera crews that were there saw that Jogi had us fired up. It was an all-or-nothing game. There was a lot of pressure on the kettle.”

Shortly before coming off, Gosens scored a strong header which was assisted by Bayern’s Joshua Kimmich. This was Gosens’ first international goal. He explained what it meant to him to score for Germany at the European Championships: “You can pinch me if you want, but even then I won’t believe it. It’s really cool! Scoring a goal for the national team is always great and then also one that was so important for our further tournament progress. That’s where I get off.”

Before the game even got going again after his goal, Gosens was subbed off. When asked how he felt about being subbed off in the 60th minute, Gosens said, “I’ve been messing around with my adductors hurting a bit for a while now. Luckily, the coach left me on the pitch for a bit so I could still score the goal.”

At the end of the day, Gosens scored a goal, assisted Havertz’ goal, would have received the assist on the first goal — had it not been given as an own goal, and was also involved in the buildup that led to the second own goal. A great turnaround after for both Germany and Gosens after their disappointing opener on Wednesday.