Stuart Dallas has impressed in the Championship for Leeds United and he looked great as the Northern Ireland lost a Euro 2020 qualifier to Germany.
Stuart Dallas was the best player on the pitch against Germany. And that’s not a sentence you’d normally expect to read on a Tuesday morning.
Despite sharing the turf with Marco Reus, Niklas Sule and Toni Kroos at Windsor Park during Monday night’s Euro 2020 qualifier, the Northern Ireland’s makeshift right-back was arguably the star performer over 90 minutes.
Dallas was a constant threat down the flanks, combining brilliantly with Corry Evans to justify his ‘Cookstown Cafu’ nickname in style.
In fact, if it wasn’t for some last-ditch defending from Matthias Ginter, Dallas might have produced a first-half assist for Conor Washington with a trademark burst of acceleration and drilled cross.
Instead, the Northern Ireland were punished for missing their chances in typically ruthless fashion from the visiting Germans.
A stunning volley from Marcel Halsenberg and a tidy finish from the influential Serge Gnabry sealed a 2-0 win for Joachim Low’s new-look, rather inconsistent side in a game where they were forced to live on the knife edge for far longer than they might have anticipated.
But Dallas still deserves all the credit he gets.
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