The German U21 national team lost the last endurance test before the European Football Championship in Slovakia. On the 46th birthday of head coach Antonio di Salvo, the DFB team lost an internal friendly against EM participant Finland in Frankfurt am Main with 1: 2 (0, 0: 0: 0, 1: 1, 0: 1). The game was played over 4×30 minutes.
The goals on Wednesday scored Caspar Jander for Germany as well as Doni Arifi and Dario Naamo for Finland. The game took place in the exclusion of the public.
“It was a good test today because it was simulated that what was going on at the European Championship,” said Di Salvo. “The Finns were playfully good, but above all they were poisonous.” The coach gave each player another 60 minutes of play: “That was very important to us. Of course we would have preferred to win, but the result is not the only decisive one for me today. We rounded off the whole thing with a penalty shootout after two halves.
The German U21 will travel to Slovakia on Sunday. The first opponent is Slovenia on Thursday (9:00 p.m./SAT.1), then it goes against the Czech Republic (June 15) and defending champion England (June 18). All first and second places of the four EM groups qualify for the quarter-finals. The final will take place on June 28th in Bratislava.