Germany beaten by resurgent France

One of the Euro2012 favourites Germany suffered a 1-2 home defeat at the hands of a resurgent France in an international friendly at the Weserstadion, Bremen. While a weakened Germany had their coordination problems between defence and attack, the new Equipe Tricolore used two of their counter-attacks to shock their neighbours.

France looked well prepared for the match against Germany, had two early chances and it didn't come as a big surprise that they went ahead in the 21st minute through a Olivier Giroud goal after right-back Mathieu Debuchy had used the gap offered to him before playing the ball into the centre for an in-form Giroud to simply push in.

The make-shift German side reacted after going down by a goal with some nice combinations and threatened the goal of new France captain Hugo Lloris, but Klose, Özil and others were either denied by Lloris or hit wide of the target. Just before the break Germany's André Schürrle had to go off after Debuchy's elbow hit him in the face. Luckily for the Leverkusen winger the first diagnosis of a broken nose did not come true. It remained 1-0 for France at the break.

If one thought that after the breather Germany would regroup and continue to threathen the France goal was to be disappointed then suddenly France had more of the ball and the game. The second French goal seemed to be coming when substitute Florent Malouda scored of a rebound in the 69th minute following a Giroud attempt.

Once more Germany seemed to wake-up only after conceding a goal and they pressed for a consolation goal late in the match and were rewarded in the first-minute of injury time through substitutes combining, Benedikt Höwedes found a free Thomas Müller on the right, who played the ball into the middle with Cacau tapping the ball in from the far corner.

In the end it was a deserving 2-1 win for France, who remain unbeaten in 18 matches; while for Germany a 10 match unbeaten run came to an end. Coach Joachim Loew said after the match that a lot of work remains before Euro2012 starts in June, while his counterpart Laurent Blanc said his team played well but it remains to be seen if they would be amongst the favourites.


MATCH STATS

Germany 0-1 (1-2) France - Goals: 0-1 Olivier Giroud (21'), 0-2 Florent Malouda (69'), 1-2 Cacau (90+1')

Germany
12-Tim Wiese; 20-Jérôme Boateng, 5-Mats Hummels, 14-Holger Badstuber (46' 3-Benedikt Höwedes), 4-Dennis Aogo; 6-Sami Khedira (70' 24-Lars Bender), 18-Toni Kroos; 21-Marco Reus (70' 19-Cacau), 8-Mesut Özil, 9-André Schürrle (44' 13-Thomas Müller); 11-Miroslav Klose (46' 23-Mario Gomez)
Unused Substitutes: 1-Manuel Neuer; Marcel Schmelzer, Christian Träsch, Simon Rolfes

France
1-Hugo Lloris; Mathieu Debuchy, Adil Rami, Philippe Mexes, Eric Abidal; Yann M'Vila (62' Florent Malouda), Yohan Cabaye (62' Alou Diarra); Samir Nasri, Mathieu Valbuena (68' Morgan Amalfitano), Franck Ribery (46' Jeremy Menez); Olivier Giroud (76' Louis Saha)
Unused Substitutes: Cedric Carrasso, Steve Mandanda, Patrice Evra, Anthony Reveillere, Mamadou Sakho, Marvin Martin, Kevin Gameiro

Referee
Tagliavento (Italy)