Germany, whose coach was fired after losing to Japan, secured a 2-1 victory over France without Mbappe
Germany soccer team, whose coach was sacked after a “shocking loss” to Japan, finally had a reason to smile after six games as they defeated high-flying France.
The Germans defeated France 2-1 in a friendly at Zignale Iduna Park in Dortmund, Germany, on Wednesday morning (ET).
Veteran striker Thomas Muller, who has 123 caps for Germany in A-matches, opened the scoring in the fourth minute of play, before Leroy Sane (Bayern Munich) found the back of the net in the 42nd minute.
France pulled one back in the 44th minute when Antoine Griezmann (Atletico Madrid) converted a penalty kick.
France’s signature striker Kylian Mbappe (Paris Saint-Germain) was included on the bench but did not take the field until the final whistle.
Local media outlets reported that Mbappe had been feeling pain in his knee and was resting to manage his condition.
The victory for Germany, nicknamed the “Chariot Corps,” was their first in six games.
After crashing out of the group stage of last year’s World Cup in Qatar, Germany won 2-0 against Peru in March but have since lost one and drawn four.
They lost 2-3 to Belgium in their second game in March, battled to a hard-fought 3-3 draw with Ukraine in their first game in June, and then fell to Poland (0-1) and Colombia (0-2).
Desperate for a turnaround, Germany welcomed Japan home on July 10, only to be brought to their knees by a staggering 1-4 defeat.
It was the first time in 38 years that the German national team had lost three consecutive games in an A-match since 1985, when they were West Germany, which led to the dismissal of their head coach, Flick.
According to the BBC, it was the first time the German national soccer team had “sacked” a head coach since the introduction of a full-time manager in 1926.
With morale low and the team coming off a victorious World Cup in Qatar, where France narrowly missed out on the title, there were many speculations that Germany’s “winless streak” would continue.
France thrashed the Netherlands 4-0 in their first match after the World Cup, and then won all four matches from March to June, only to be held back by a desperate Germany.
The match against France was the first in which national team coach Rudi Föhler, who led Germany as head coach in the early 2000s, took over on an interim basis to fill a coaching void.
It has been nine years since Germany beat France in the quarterfinals of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil (1-0).
“I apologize to coach Flick,” Muller told public broadcaster ARD after the game, 먹튀검증 “it was not easy to withstand such a bad run of form, it was everyone’s responsibility.”
