Musiala scores as Germany routs Curazao in World Cup debut
Musiala's half-turn finish capped Germany's 4-1 surge by the 47th minute, a ruthless start that raised bigger questions about how far its attack can go.
Jamal Musiala turned sharply and finished in the 47th minute, stretching Germany’s lead to 4-1 and turning a lopsided World Cup opener into a test of how much firepower the four-time champions can bring to the tournament. In Houston Stadium on June 14, 2026, Germany had already carved open Curazao with goals from Felix Nmecha, Nico Schlotterbeck and Kai Havertz, while Livano Comenencia had briefly given the Caribbean side a place in the match with the first World Cup goal in its history.
The sequence before halftime showed both Germany’s speed and its variety. Nmecha scored in the sixth minute, Schlotterbeck added a second in the 38th, and Havertz converted a penalty in first-half stoppage time to make it 3-1. Curazao, making its debut on the World Cup stage, had pulled level at 1-1 through Comenencia in the 21st minute, but the gap in depth and pace became more obvious as the half wore on. Musiala’s goal, assisted by Joshua Kimmich, was the kind of decisive touch Germany will need when the defending space shrinks and the opposition gets better.
That is the larger significance of the goal and of the scoreline. Germany did not simply beat Curazao; it overwhelmed a team that arrived as the smallest nation by population ever to qualify for a World Cup, with about 156,000 people, and did so with a first-half burst that left little doubt about the result. For a side that came into the tournament seeking its first victory in a World Cup debut in 12 years, the opening 45 minutes suggested an attack that can create chances from multiple sources, not just one dominant striker.
The question now is how much of that attacking identity will travel beyond a debut against a first-time World Cup participant. Germany’s ceiling will be judged less by the elegance of Musiala’s finish than by whether this kind of positional fluency, movement and finishing precision can hold up against elite defenses later in the tournament. Against Curazao, the answer was emphatic. Whether it proves to be a harbinger of a deep run will depend on whether Germany can keep turning control into goals when the margins get far smaller.
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