One Germany surprisingly fragile in defense He had to work extra hard to turn the game around and defeat Greece 2-1 in its last friendly before Euro 2024played at the Borussia-Park stadium, in the German town of Monchengladbach.
A fantastic double save by Manuel Neuer at 6 minutes, against Christos Tzolis who defined from point-blank range from the center of the area, foreshadowed the problems that the locals were going to have. Because The goalkeeper’s tumble was a consequence of a loss by his teammates at the start.
To a tiring walk, the Germans added false starts from the bottom, losses in dangerous areas and weakness in the last line.
In one of those actions, Greece reached the opening of the scoreboard. Germany lost the ball behind, shot from outside the area and his own Neuer, who until then was the figure on the court, had a weak response, rebounded and Georgios Masouras took advantage.
The Germans looked dull and Greece, a team that did not qualify for the Euro, became more and more encouraged. Neuer redeemed himself on a couple of occasions and for that reason alone the match reached halftime 1-0.
The second part was another history.
Because Germany showed a different attitude. Despite the fact that she never found fluidity in possession, with sheer force she was locking the Greeks against her own goal.
So, it came the tie at 56 from the hand of Kei Havertz, who took advantage of an assist from Leroy Sane to balance things.
From then on, Greece dedicated itself to trying to defend the tie, beyond launching some counterattack that did not bear fruit.
He almost did it but, with a minute left, Pascal Gross scored a goal from another game, with a spectacular volley from the crescent.
The public celebrated the victory, yes, but deep down they left the stadium with some uneasiness.
