The only shame is that, on the occasion of his 130th and final cap, Lukas Podolski really had to be the star of the show.
Anybody who saw him in action for Arsenal will know just how hard the football gods were working to get the ball to fly into the top corner after he leathered it goalwards from 25 yards to steal the win from nowhere.
It was a bit hard-to-believe on a night that England largely outplayed their opponents with their only real fault being too many unconvincing finishes of their own.
Nevertheless, the DVD of tonight’s performance definitely bears a second watching, not least for the performances turned in by a few English contenders for best newcomer and Gareth Southgate‘s brave direction.
His vision for the future is clearly still very much a work in progress – but there’s a word that has not been associated with the England team for a long, long time. Progress.
Over the period of Southgate’s tenure – first as an interim manager and now as the permanent choice – regardless of results, his England teams have continued to improve.
Going forward, having had the bravery to switch entire playing systems against the world champions, you can only see that process continuing.
For all the tactical chicanery of switching to a back three, England came out of the blocks looking for the large part like a team that knew what it was doing.
Jamie Vardy had freedom to hunt down any defender he liked and when England had the ball, he sat poised on more shoulders than Captain Flint.
Dele Alli had a licence to invent and Adam Lallana provided the energetic runs around him to draw defenders and create space for him to do so.
Jake Livermore took a while to find his feet at this level again but with a fully-fit squad there are better holding midfielder to fill that gap and there was nothing about Michael Keane’s performance to suggest the Eric Dier cannot be employed further up the field than he is at Tottenham.
Unfortunately, Joe Hart’s composure with the ball at his feet is in danger of becoming an issue for country as well as club as there were times when the England defence were nervous about using the easy outlet back to him. Those concerns were underlined when Timo Werner nearly caught the Torino goalkeeper in possession after 36 minutes.
That said, it was a rare aberration and Germany’s defence more often looked like the flustered one and the best chances in the first half came from high turnover of possession.
Lallana may have been on the half-way line when he intercepted the ball, but he had a clear run at goal and was unlucky to hit the inside of the far post with his eventual shot.
Then when Ryan Bertrand stole possession on the edge of the Germany penalty area, Vardy intelligently toe-poked the ball on to Alli and the Tottenham player had time to do better than to shoot straight at the goalkeeper.
Forget the unusual blue away strip, it was Germany not looking their usual selves, but England, with their endeavour, could claim a huge assist in that.
Germany were better in the second half. Julian Brandt’s shot inches wide of the post just after the restart before Podolski fluffed his first big chance when he failed to get on the end of a deft chip from Toni Kroos.
Still, Alli had come within a whisker of converting a deep Vardy cross and Dier bustled his way through the heart of the German defence to fire in another shot on target.
The game changed, though, once Podolski let fly and final 20 minutes reverted more to type. Despite missing several of their senior players, Germany were able to dominate through to the final whistle far too easily as England’s energy drained.
But then that is the measure of the gap that Southgate recognises has to be bridged.
He said at the start of the week that he wanted to be the best in the world, and to do that you’ve got to beat the best.
That proved too much of a leap for the first 90 minutes of his permanent reign. But the next four years suddenly looks a good deal more promising.
