German rookies take on the old hands of Chile

Germany will take on Chile in today’s Confederations Cup final in St Petersburg feeling as if they have already won the tournament after a fine run with a second-string team yielded several top prospects for next year’s World Cup defence.

Coach Joachim Loew is not a fan of the eight-team event that acts as a dress rehearsal for the following year’s World Cup. He opted to rest many of his first-choice players for the big show in Russia next year rather than shorten their off-season this year.

Among those missing are Mats Hummels, Jerome Boateng, Toni Kroos, Sami Khedira, Manuel Neuer and Marco Reus. Loew took a team made up of young hopefuls keen to gain valuable tournament experience with 2018 in mind.

Loew got even more than he hoped for and will be spoilt for choice today with several players, such as joint top scorers Leon Goretzka and Timo Werner, and Lars Stindl, showing great promise.

While a title against the South American champions, which would be Germany’s first in this competition, would be welcome, Loew was more interested in preserving team spirit ahead of today’s showdown in St Petersburg.

‘Strongest opponents’

“The boys are having fun, they are hungry for success,” Loew said. “What we are seeing is the creation of a team here.”

It is this team spirit that carried the Germans through the tournament after Loew’s squad selection initially surprised with the team having never played together before.

“Chile are the strongest opponents in this tournament, we know them pretty well and we expect them to go for it in the final,” said Loew, whose team drew 1-1 with the South Americans in a group stage encounter.

“They will be trying flat out to pull it off, as they are coming to the end of their season, and we will have to try and counter that.

“We know the Chileans are flexible in their game.”

Chile, a team of experience, will again seek to challenge Germany for possession using a pressing game orchestrated by Alexis Sanchez but a better conversion rate of any chances is crucial to their hopes of success.

They wasted good opportunities in the semifinal against Portugal before edging out the European champions on penalties to reach their third final in three years after Copa America successes in 2015 and 2016. —