Germany romped to an 8-0 win over Estonia in their third qualifier on the road to EURO 2020. We gathered the reaction to Tuesday night’s big victory at Mainz’s Opel Arena.
Marcus Sorg: It couldn’t have gone much better. The team’s enthusiasm was key and it was something we talked about before the game. We want to excite the fans and I think we succeeded in doing that tonight. You can only produce a performance like that when the whole team is working together. They deserve a lot of credit for these ten days of hard work after a long season and quite a bit of a break between the two as well. They certainly didn’t look to make the most of the boss not being here; there were no slouched shoulders.
We explored a lot of different ways to break down their defence during training. Ultimately though, the players should feel a sense of freedom and use their intuition. It was about being incisive on the night, showing that we’re becoming more consistent and continuing to push right until the end. The team did all those things and didn’t let up.
Ilkay was fantastic today. He grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and was spreading the ball about beautifully with his incredible vision. Marco Reus makes it look so easy. He made some great runs and made the most of the time and space he created for himself. We’ve got a lot of strength in depth at the moment and have two strong players for every position. It was important for Timo to end the season on a positive note. We will need him for sure.
Marco Reus: I’m delighted. We wanted to score the goals that were missing against Belarus and we certainly did that. Estonia sat very deep just like Belarus, but we really got into our rhythm with some great passing and we took our chances clinically. That free kick was probably my best goal for Germany. We can’t really use these two games as a benchmark, but it was important for us to get a lot of training sessions under our belt and get to know each other better, and today was a big improvement on Saturday. We have to stay realistic though and reach the same performance levels against the likes of the Netherlands.
Manuel Neuer: We can be proud of how we’ve performed in these two qualifiers. The early goal was important and then Estonia couldn’t keep up. We have really upped our game; we played really well against the Netherlands, although admittedly we were a little lucky to get the win. We want to keep on working and learning so that we have a quality team come summer 2020. There are always going to be discussions, we’re a footballing nation and everyone has their opinion, but we can’t let that affect our work. The competition for places is healthy and it’s important to have it.
Germany romped to an 8-0 win over Estonia in their third qualifier on the road to EURO 2020. We gathered the reaction to Tuesday night’s big victory at Mainz’s Opel Arena.
Marcus Sorg: It couldn’t have gone much better. The team’s enthusiasm was key and it was something we talked about before the game. We want to excite the fans and I think we succeeded in doing that tonight. You can only produce a performance like that when the whole team is working together. They deserve a lot of credit for these ten days of hard work after a long season and quite a bit of a break between the two as well. They certainly didn’t look to make the most of the boss not being here; there were no slouched shoulders.
We explored a lot of different ways to break down their defence during training. Ultimately though, the players should feel a sense of freedom and use their intuition. It was about being incisive on the night, showing that we’re becoming more consistent and continuing to push right until the end. The team did all those things and didn’t let up.
Ilkay was fantastic today. He grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and was spreading the ball about beautifully with his incredible vision. Marco Reus makes it look so easy. He made some great runs and made the most of the time and space he created for himself. We’ve got a lot of strength in depth at the moment and have two strong players for every position. It was important for Timo to end the season on a positive note. We will need him for sure.
Marco Reus: I’m delighted. We wanted to score the goals that were missing against Belarus and we certainly did that. Estonia sat very deep just like Belarus, but we really got into our rhythm with some great passing and we took our chances clinically. That free kick was probably my best goal for Germany. We can’t really use these two games as a benchmark, but it was important for us to get a lot of training sessions under our belt and get to know each other better, and today was a big improvement on Saturday. We have to stay realistic though and reach the same performance levels against the likes of the Netherlands.
Manuel Neuer: We can be proud of how we’ve performed in these two qualifiers. The early goal was important and then Estonia couldn’t keep up. We have really upped our game; we played really well against the Netherlands, although admittedly we were a little lucky to get the win. We want to keep on working and learning so that we have a quality team come summer 2020. There are always going to be discussions, we’re a footballing nation and everyone has their opinion, but we can’t let that affect our work. The competition for places is healthy and it’s important to have it.
