Germany suffer 1-3 friendly loss against Argentina

Germany hosted Argentina in a high profile friendly last evening in Frankfurt/Main and suffered a rather unlucky 1-3 defeat against the South Americans which could have ended differently.

On a hot-and-humid evening both teams made a quick start into the game as die Mannschaft and the Albiceleste showed their attacking intent, but both set of defences stood their ground with Mesut Özil having the only real look at goal early on.

Germany had to make an early change after defender Mats Hummel and striker Gonzalo Higuain banged their heads with the German having to go off while Higuain got a turban-like bandage. The match got more intense and then on the half hour mark goalkeeper Ron Robert Zieler brought down Jose Ernesto Sosa, which resulted in a penalty and a red card, the first-ever red card for a German goalkeeper in the 864th match. In came another young keeper in Marc-Andre ter Stegen, whose first act was to easily collect Lionel Messi's terribly taken penalty. But Argentina went into the break with a lead as Ángel Di Maria's corner was put into the German goal by his Ream Madrid team mate Sami Khedira a minute into injury time.

Germany had the better start into the second session, but Marco Reus' long distance shot only hit the right post while at the other end Lionel Messi scored Argentina's second in the 52nd minute off a Higuain pass. Now Argentina looked in control, but Germany fought back into the match though the goal for them remained elusive while Argentina scored their third off a thundering shot from Ángel Di Maria in the 73rd minute.

Down three goals the young German side, whose oldest player by now was only 24 year old in Benedikt Höwedes still continued to attack and got their goal of the night when Höwedes headed in a Mario Götze shot in the 81st minute though more was possible even with 10 men for over an hour of play.


MATCH STATS

Germany 1-3 Argentina - Goals: 0-1 Sami Khedira (45+1', own goal), 0-2 Lionel Messi (52'), 0-3 Angel di Maria (73'), 1-3 Benedikt Höwedes (81')

Germany
Ron Robert Zieler - Jerome Boateng, Mats Hummels (25' Benedikt Höwedes), Holger Badstuber, Marcel Schmelzer - Lars Bender (69' Mario Götze), Sami Khedira (69' Ilkay Gündogan) - Thomas Müller (32' Marc-Andre ter Stegen), Mesut Özil (69' Toni Kroos), Marco Reus - Miroslav Klose [C] (62' Andre Schürrle)

Argentina
Sergio Romero - Pablo Zabaleta (65' Hugo Armando Campagnaro), Federico Fernandez, Ezequiel Garay, Marcos Rojo - Fernando Gago, Javier Mascherano (79' Rodrigo Brana) - Ángel Di Maria (73' Pablo Guinazu), Jose Ernesto Sosa (46' Sergei Aguero) - Lionel Messi [C], Gonzalo Higuain

Referee
Jonas Eriksson (Sweden)