Bischof and Wirtz fire Germany to first win under Klopp
| Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images |
After drawing 1-1 with the Netherlands and losing 0-1 to Serbia, Germany secured their first win under Jürgen Klopp in the UEFA Nations League on Thursday, beating Serbia 2-0 at the Allianz Arena in Munich.
Klopp changed the whole starting XI from the team that lost to Greece, with Jonas Urbig and Derry Scherhant both handed their debuts, while Serge Gnabry wore the captain's armband in the absence of Joshua Kimmich, who had left the squad after the first two games.
Jürgen Klopp's side began the game on the front foot and dominated right away, with Aleksandar Pavlovic, Nick Woltemade and Waldemar Anton all putting shots wide in the opening stages.
Gnabry should have opened the scoring in the 29th minute when he combined with Nick Woltemade and found himself with a free shot on goal. Rather than passing the ball back to the forward, the Bayern Munich attacker tried to score himself but couldn't get the ball past Djordje Petrovic in the Serbian goal.
Serbia rarely threatened Germany in the first half, but almost scored out of nowhere on the counter a few minutes later. Filip Kostic was unleashed on the left wing and stormed forward into the box before squaring the ball across goal towards Luka Jovic, but the striker couldn't get to the ball.
At the other end, Wirtz had a header kept out by a good save from Petrovic before Germany finally broke the deadlock in the 39th minute. Wirtz took a few nice touches in the box before dinking a shot onto the post. Luckily for Germany, Tom Bischof was there to put the rebound into the net on his first start, giving Klopp's team the lead at half-time.
With Said El Mala coming on for his debut to replace captain Gnabry, Germany started the second half looking for a second goal and went close on several occasions.
Woltemade should have scored around the hour mark when he fired over the bar from a couple of yards out, but Germany would get their two-goal advantage a few minutes later.
Maximilian Mittelstädt found Florian Wirtz, who had taken over the captain's armband following Gnabry's substitution, and the Liverpool star went on to dodge Srdjan Babic's challenge before putting the ball into the bottom corner to make it 2-0.
Malick Thiaw came close with a header in the final stages, but Wirtz's strike proved to be the final goal of the night as Germany held on for a deserved 2-0 win in Munich.
