Key events
62 min: Some admin: Julian Nagelsmann has been booked for the temper-fuelled behaviour of his staff, while that offside for the Denmark goal may have been down to Delaney … though Andersen was also definitely off during the first phase of play. Anyway, here we are.
61 min: Mæhle is booked for dragging back Sane, then complaining about being penalised. He’ll miss the quarter-final should Denmark progress.
59 min: A ball is played to Havertz down the inside-left channel. It’s behind him, but he somehow manages to drag it with him anyway, bursting between Andersen and Vestergaard and clear down the inside-left channel. Outrageous skill! He enters the box, draws Schmeichel and … dinks a poor effort over the keeper and well wide right. He should have scored, but the skill to carve out the chance was so good, it’s difficult to criticise him too much. What a touch!
57 min: Bah and Andrich clash heads. Both are booked, which seems kind of strange. Andrich has taken a sore whack as well … and in more insult-injury news, he’ll miss the quarters now should Germany make it through.
56 min: This suddenly seems like an awfully long time ago, doesn’t it?
55 min: What an outrageous turnaround in fortune! And to add insult to injury, replays show Andersen was only just offside up the other end. Had he cut his toenails during the break, he’d have probably been on … and that is almost literally true. It was that close. The thin lines between success and failure, right there.
GOAL! Germany 1-0 Denmark (Havertz 53 pen)
Havertz whistles the spot kick into the bottom-right corner! Unstoppable, even though Schmeichel went the right way! Bedlam in Dortmund!
Penalty for Germany!
52 min: There wasn’t too much space between Raum and Andersen, but the defender’s hand was away from his body. Michael Oliver takes a look at the screen, and soon he’s drawing a TV in the air and pointing to the spot. What a minute poor Joachim Andersen has had!
51 min: The ball’s pumped up the other end, and now there’s a potential handball in the Denmark box! The ball flicking off Andersen’s hand as Raum crossed from the left.
NO GOAL! Germany 0-0 Denmark
Now it’s Denmark’s turn to suffer Michael Oliver-infused disappointment. You could argue that while Andersen was initially offside when the cross came in from the right, a new phase of play had begun. But this is the decision, which is greeted as though a goal has just been scored.
GOAL! Germany 0-1 Denmark (Andersen 48)
A free kick out on left, floated in by Eriksen. Vestergaard keeps it alive at the far stick. The ball’s hooked back into the middle. Andersen is offside, but then there’s a stramash, the ball pinballing around, Delaney making a nuisance of himself six yards out. Finally it drops to Andersen, who sweeps from six yards into the bottom left!
47 min: Eriksen tries to ping Hojlund into space, but Rudiger intervenes. All a bit scrappy at the start of the half. “This is surely made for traditional no 9,” writes Tim Stappard. “Get Füllkrug on asap for me.”
Before the half can start, someone with a clipboard ushers Michael Oliver to the touchline. After a chat he calls over the captains İlkay Gündoğan and Kasper Schmeichel, pointing upwards. To the heavens? More incoming weather? Or something wrong with the roof? The floodlights? It’s not clear. But eventually it’s decided to get going again, and Denmark get the second half underway. No changes.
So much for an extended half-time break. Here come the teams!
Half-time polka party.
HALF TIME: Germany 0-0 Denmark
The whistle announces what will reportedly be an extended half-time break.
45 min: Musiala loses possession in midfield, and suddenly there’s a lot of space for Delaney down the inside-right channel. He draws Rudiger and slips a pass into the centre for Hojlund, who attempts to chip Neuer, only for the keeper to stick up a strong arm and block. Andrich blooters clear.
44 min: The referee’s not got everything right this evening, though. “On Danish TV the commentators and pundits have been very critical of the time it took to halt the game,” reports Lars Esbjerg. “In 2005 a Danish player was struck by lightning during a training match. He had a cardiac arrest but survived but lost a leg. His coach at the time: Kasper Hjulmand.”
42 min: Schlotterbeck over-elaborates in his attempts to stride out from the back, and gifts the ball to Højlund, who slices into the side netting from the right-hand corner of the six-yard box. A more confident striker would have hit the target at the very least. A decent half-chance.
41 min: Denmark boss Kasper Hjulmand is booked for telling it as he sees it.
39 min: Speaking of headed goals, that disallowed one earlier on. On ITV, co-commentator Ally McCoist has just said after the restart: “The first thing I’ve got to do is apologise to Michael Oliver, because it was a block and it was a free kick, and I get carried away and I wanted a goal given, but he got it right.” And replays do indeed suggest that’s the case, so I should offer the ref my apologies too. In mitigation: this is what a season of PGMOL does to a man. It scrambles the brain and curdles the soul …
37 min: A cross comes in from the Germany left by Raum. Havertz smacks a header straight at Schmeichel, the save happening to him more than his making it. Anywhere else and that was a goal. Then the ball’s floated in from the right, and Schlotterbeck heads into the side netting. Denmark can’t cope with crosses into their box at all. A headed goal looks just a matter of time.
The game restarts
35 min: The clock resets, and it’s an uncontested drop ball in the middle of the park. Germany get the game underway again.
Yep, the weather has eased off, and the players are back out. A five-minute warm up, and we’ll be underway again. Great news.
Michael Oliver is flitting up and down the tunnel. Hopefully we’ll have some action soon!
Mid-storm postbag. “This reminds me of 2006 coming back from Brazil vs Japan in Dortmund. My wife and I were driving back to our base in Thuringia when the storm arrived. We couldn’t continue the journey and took cover in a hostelry where we were looked after very well indeed. I’ve never seen forked lightning like it” – Tony Mason
“I was at the Azteca stadium for Mexico-Jamaica in 2023. The players were off for 20 mins or so. All the fans in the cheap seats higher up stayed dry. All the fans in the expensive seats lower down got very wet” – Beth Davies
“If Denmark were to beat Germany this evening, would it be a case of lightning striking twice?” – Gary Byrne
“The stormy weather is a warning to England that they had better hurry Kane back to full fitness” – Peter Oh
It continues to absolutely hammer down in Dortmund. Fans in the lower seats making their way to the back of the stand in search of cover. Others sitting it out in polythene macs or under flags and banners. Water sluicing down from the roof. We could be at Old Trafford. A vague Glastonbury-in-the-summer-rain carnival feel as well.
“I’m surprised it took them that long to get them off,” says ITV pundit Ange Postecoglou. The former Yokohama F Marinos manager speaks of his experience with similar storms in Asia. “They’re really sensitive around it … there’s been some pretty nasty incidents with it.”
Match suspended
The match has been suspended “due to adverse weather conditions.” The players are sent back to the dressing rooms. The thunder continues to crash, the lightning continues to dance, and the rain continues to come down in buckets. A tempest. Hopefully we’ll be getting some more football tonight, but with the pitch taking a proper soaking, nothing’s certain yet.
The players haven’t gone back down the tunnel. They’re all congregated around the dugouts. According to ITV referee expert Christina Unkel, “one of the biggest things to determine is how far it is, a general rule of thumb is ten miles is typically a 30-minute delay … but here at the Euros that decision is made internally between the referee and an appointed individual.”
36 min: … so with large forks of lightning flashing directly above the Westfalenstadion, referee Michael Oliver stops the game and takes the players off.
34 min: A little bit of space for Havertz on the edge of the Danish D. It quickly closes down. Then a huge clap of thunder. This is Wagnerian.
32 min: The rain is now coming down in stair rods. More lightning. Meanwhile Musiala tries to release Gündoğan down the inside-left channel but Andersen reads the danger and intercepts well.
