Florian Wirtz endured a difficult night as Germany lost an away World Cup qualifier for the first time in their history – with Conor Bradley benefiting.Germany suffered their first-ever loss in an away World Cup qualifier on Thursday night as they fell to a 2-0 defeat to Slovakia.Wirtz started in his usual left-sided role for Julian Nagelsmann and played the full 90 minutes as David Hancko and David Strelec got the goals for the hosts.As the two most expensive German players in this summer’s transfer window, there were high expectations around Wirtz and new Newcastle striker Nick Woltemade.But BILD described the pair as “almost invisible” on a night of “historic embarrassment” for the national team.Liverpool’s No. 7 was blamed for losing possession before Hancko opened the scoring in the first half, though he was far from his country’s worst performer.In fact, per FotMob, Wirtz created more chances than any other player (four), with BuliNews rating him a team-high five-out-of-10 as he was “Germany’s only real creative spark.”However it is clear that no player truly stood out, with Nagelsmann left pondering whether he needs to focus less on star power and more on effort.“I don’t want to hear anything more about quality. It’s enough for me if we have the passion,” he said, per kicker.“Perhaps we need to rely on less quality and instead on players who give it their all.”Germany’s defeat comes at the first round of qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup and leaves them bottom of Group A ahead of their clash with Northern Ireland on Sunday.Provided they both start, that game will pit two Liverpool teammates directly against each other: Wirtz on the left wing and Bradley as an attacking right wing-back.While Germany stuttered to an unlikely loss on Thursday, Northern Ireland made light work of Luxembourg to begin the qualifying stage at the top of their group.Bradley started and played 76 minutes, with manager Michael O’Neill keen to manage his fitness, exiting the pitch with his country already 3-1 up. It was the right-back’s cross which was cleared into the path of Shea Charles to make it 2-1 shortly after half-time, while FotMob show that he contested more duels than any other player – winning six of his 12, including three tackles.“It’s going to be another difficult game but looking forward to it,” Bradley told BBC Sport NI of the upcoming clash with Germany.“[Florian and I] had a few jokes before we went away, not WhatsApps yet but I’ll have to get into him tomorrow and tell him to take it easy on us!“He’s an unbelievable player. I’ve seen that from the few weeks we’ve had together in pre-season, and we’ll have to keep him quiet Sunday night.”