There is something specifically satisfying about the kind of goal that Deniz Undav scored in the 88th minute at the MHP Arena. The Stuttgart striker — playing in his home stadium, in front of his home crowd, in his first Germany appearance for more than a year — stretched to reach Leroy Sané’s header across the face of the goal and clinically slotted home the winner with the composed technique that a player who has spent 13 months wondering whether the international call-up might never come again produces when the moment arrives and everything in his body tells him not to waste it. Germany 2-1 Ghana. Seven consecutive wins under Julian Nagelsmann. A World Cup preparation window that has now produced two victories from two matches — the 4-3 comeback against Switzerland on Friday confirmed, and this harder-fought, more complicated, considerably more anxious result confirmed alongside it. The MHP Arena celebrated Undav’s goal with the specific noise that a home crowd makes for a hometown boy, and the post-match discussion about Leroy Sané — whose supporters in the stands had been booing throughout a performance that the former Bayern winger’s numbers rather than his influence communicated — gave the evening an additional dimension that the German football conversation will be having for rather longer than the three days between now and Tuesday’s next fixture.
The occasion had been framed before kick-off by the specific context that both squads carried into the MHP Arena. Germany comes from defeating Switzerland 4-3, a very exciting match where they ultimately emerged victorious with four great goals. Florian Wirtz’s matching pair of goals and assists had been the headline of that Basel performance, and Monday’s fixture at the MHP Arena gave Nagelsmann the opportunity to rotate the squad, reward the players whose club performances had been making arguments for inclusion in the World Cup squad, and test the depth that a tournament campaign of 7 matches requires if the early knockout rounds are to be navigated without the attrition of key players reducing the squad’s quality below the levels the knockout phases demand.
Ghana, on the other hand, qualified without major issues but has raised concerns in recent friendlies. Losses to Japan 2-0, South Korea 1-0, and especially a 5-1 defeat to Austria have exposed weaknesses heading into this match. Otto Addo had made two changes from the Austria lineup — Benjamin Asare and Kojo Oppong Peprah coming in for the Stuttgart occasion, the manager seeking the combination of defensive stability and midfield energy that the previous performances had suggested was not yet consistently available. Antoine Semenyo of Manchester City was the individual Ghanaian performance that the neutral observer had been most interested to evaluate — the forward’s club form under Pep Guardiola across the season having produced enough moments to suggest he was operating at a different level from the previous generation of Ghanaian World Cup attackers, and Monday’s 90 minutes providing the specific competitive environment where that form could be tested against genuinely elite European opposition.
Germany lined up: Nübel; Brown, Schlotterbeck, Tah, Kimmich; Stiller, Groß; Wirtz, Gnabry, Havertz; Woltemade. The starting lineup communicated Nagelsmann’s specific World Cup preparation priorities — Nübel in goal rather than Baumann (the confirmed number one for the tournament) giving the Stuttgart goalkeeper a competitive match before the squad’s final confirmation. Kimmich at right back in the captain’s role — the Bayern Munich midfielder’s ability to play across multiple positions one of his most valuable contributions to a squad whose flexibility is one of its genuine competitive assets. Wirtz in the number ten position, his Basel performance the most recent chapter in a campaign for the Liverpool midfielder that had established him as the most important individual creative contribution to the German national team’s World Cup ambitions. Havertz at the tip of the attacking three, his 21 international goals making him the primary finishing option when the combinations produced the opportunities. Woltemade as the lone striker — the young forward’s inclusion ahead of Fullkrug or Undav at the start reflecting the specific rotation choices Nagelsmann had made for a second match in four days.
Ghana’s starting eleven placed Asare in goal behind Caleb Yirenkyi, Jonas Adjetey, Alexander Djiku, and Derrick Köhn across the back four. Kojo Oppong Peprah, Thomas Partey, Kwasi Sibo, and Semenyo in the midfield and attacking midfield positions. Prince Adu Kwabena and Jordan Ayew as the forward pair — a combination of experience in Ayew and the specific directness that Kwabena’s running brings to transition situations when Ghana regained possession in their own half and looked to carry it forward quickly before the German defensive shape could reorganise.
Germany dominated the early stages in Stuttgart but were unable to muster a clear-cut chance and find the breakthrough. A goalmouth scramble from a Kimmich free-kick saw a Jonathan Tah effort deflect wide, before Wirtz had the ball in the back of the net with a neat finish but the referee flagged for an offside by Woltemade in what was another let off for Ghana. The disallowed goal — the specific frustration of seeing the ball in the net and the flag immediately dismissing the celebration — captured the pattern of a first half that Germany had dominated without converting, every threatening move producing some form of obstruction before the goal could arrive. Despite controlling 66% of possession and creating several clear chances, Germany remained deadlocked at 0-0 with Ghana as halftime neared. The scoreboard’s failure to reflect the territorial picture was becoming the story of the half.
Karl squandered his big moment to score the winner when a loose touch from Leon Goretzka’s pass saw him only manage to prod an effort wide of goal. After a brilliant individual run by Karl, the ball fell perfectly for Joshua Kimmich directly in front of the Ghana goal. However, the captain mistimed his strike completely, sending the ball incredibly wide of the target. These were the moments — Karl’s clumsy touch when the goal was open, Kimmich’s mistimed strike from a gift position — that made the first half’s goalless status feel earned by Ghana rather than merely fortunate, even if the possession and the expected goals suggested otherwise.
The hosts did finally go ahead just before the half-time break from the penalty spot after Jonas Adjetey was judged to have handled the ball from Angelo Stiller. Havertz was the man to step up and the Arsenal man rolled the ball into the net to put Germany in front and grab his 21st international goal. The handball — adjudicated correctly by referee Stuart Attwell and confirmed by VAR — had the specific timing that late first-half penalties carry, arriving when the team that has been struggling to convert its dominance into goals finally receives the specific gift that the match had been denying them. Havertz’s composed roll was the penalty technique of a player who has converted enough of them to know exactly where he was going before Asare committed to a direction. One-nil at halftime. The MHP Arena went in satisfied but aware that the second half had not yet been played.
Antoine Semenyo finally got his chance to shine early in the second half, with the Manchester City star skipping past Rüdiger brilliantly before squaring it to Enoch Kofi Adu whose shot was blocked. The sequence was the kind of individual moment that reminded everyone present — and the German coaching staff most directly — that the specific talent available to Otto Addo’s Black Stars was not negligible in the way that the Austria result might have suggested to a casual observer. Semenyo’s movement had been causing Rüdiger problems throughout the match in the specific way that a left-footed forward operating on the right side does when the defender’s natural tendency to push wide is exploited by cutting inside. The blocked shot was the nearest Ghana came to the equaliser before Issahaku produced the real thing.
Abdul Fatawu Issahaku’s late strike cancelled out Kai Havertz’s first-half penalty. Ayew found himself inside the box and unleashed a powerful strike that deflected on Woltemade and hit Germany’s post, and Fatawu came in as a substitute and scored the equaliser. The Issahaku goal — the Leicester City winger arriving as a substitute and converting with the directness that had made him one of the AFCON’s better individual performers before Ghana’s own disappointing tournament exit — levelled the match at 1-1 in the 70th minute and produced the specific anxiety inside the MHP Arena that an equaliser against a World Cup preparation expectation creates in a crowd that had arrived anticipating a comfortable home win. The German players’ body language communicated the same calculation — the second half had not produced what the first had promised, and the scoreline was now reflecting that divergence in a way the coaching staff would be analysing carefully.
To follow Germany and Ghana’s upcoming World Cup preparation matches and all international football results ahead of the June 2026 tournament, you can watch live international football scores and World Cup warm-up updates on fawanews.org.uk throughout the final preparation window before the summer.
Nagelsmann’s response to the equaliser was the response of a manager who had been planning his substitutions around the specific evolution of the second half and who had Undav — on the bench, watching the match from the perspective of a player who had not represented Germany in more than a year and who understood exactly what the opportunity meant for his chances of being named in the final World Cup squad — available as exactly the option the situation required. Undav made himself the hero in front of his home crowd in Stuttgart — the former Brighton striker stretched to reach Leroy Sané’s header to clinically slot home the winner. The combination — Sané picking up the ball on the right side and delivering a header across the face of the goal, Undav arriving at full stretch to redirect it into the net before Asare could react — was the kind of instinctive, second-post finishing that a striker who has been thinking about goals rather than playing them for 13 months produces when the chance is finally offered. The MHP Arena erupted with the noise of a crowd that had been boing certain players and celebrating others across 90 minutes and which now had the simple, direct confirmation of the result it had wanted. Two-one to Germany. The seventh consecutive win under Nagelsmann. Undav’s first Germany goal in more than a year.
Despite scoring the winning goal versus Ghana, Undav may not feature for Germany at the World Cup. The post-match context confirmed what the squad selection discussion heading into Monday had already established — that Undav’s goal had made the World Cup squad argument considerably more compelling than it had been 89 minutes earlier, but that Nagelsmann’s squad construction across the remaining preparation weeks before the final 26-man announcement would involve considerations that a single late winner, however dramatic, did not fully resolve. The manager’s acknowledgement that the goal had been important for Undav’s case was the kind of coach’s comment that leaves the final determination to the process rather than the moment, and the process — two more friendlies before the announcement, Oliver Baumann confirmed as the number one, Felix Nmecha and his knee injury doubt still unresolved — had considerably more variables than a single 88th-minute finish could settle.
The Leroy Sané subplot was the evening’s additional layer. “Hopefully they don’t boo Leroy Sané next time,” Undav addressed Germany fans after the win over Ghana, as the former Bayern player had been subjected to boos from the crowd. The booing of a senior international player by his own supporters in a World Cup preparation match is the kind of incident that generates internal discussions at national team level and which the coaching staff manages by focusing on the performance rather than the reception. Sané had provided the cross for Undav’s winner. His overall contribution to the 90 minutes had been the contribution of a player whose club-level form in the season had not consistently matched the level his reputation implied. The booing was neither fair nor productive — but it was not, in the context of a crowd watching a national team preparing for a World Cup on home soil, entirely without motivation.
Nagelsmann has Germany on a seven-match winning streak heading into the tournament. That run now spans across two separate preparation windows and a qualifying campaign that produced five consecutive wins after the single group-stage defeat. Germany and Ghana have faced each other on three occasions in international football. Germany won the opening two matches in 1993 and 2010. Their last encounter in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil ended in a 2-2 draw. The 2014 draw — the match where Miroslav Klose scored his 15th World Cup goal to equal Ronaldo’s all-time record — remains the most significant fixture in the series, and Monday’s 2-1 added a preparation match result to a H2H that the competitive context will eventually provide the more meaningful chapter in this summer’s tournament. Both clubs will compete at the 2026 World Cup in North America. Germany are in Group F with Poland, Japan, and Tunisia. Ghana are in a separate group. They may or may not meet again in the knockout phases. The official FIFA World Cup 2026 website carries the full group-stage draw and fixture schedule for anyone tracking the tournament’s development.
For complete international football coverage, Germany’s next friendly ahead of the summer, and live scores from all World Cup 2026 preparation fixtures, make sure you follow live international football scores and all World Cup warm-up results on fawanews.org.uk as both nations finalise their preparations for the tournament.
