A win at home over Austria on Friday would qualify Germany for the 2012 European Championship with two games to spare and would take its qualifying record to eight wins out of eight games. AndCoach Joachim Loew’s team wants to become the first German team to advance to a major tournament with a 100 percent record in qualifying.
“What we want to focus onnow is to seal qualification and on Friday we have a huge chance at home against Austria to achieve this,” captain Philipp Lahm said. “It has never happened before that a German teamwins all qualifiers. We will do everything we can on Friday to give the Austrians no chance.”
Despite a string of injuries that have reduced Loew’s squad to just 18 outfieldplayers, Loew is confident absentees like Sami Khedira, Sven Bender, Marco Reus and top league scorer Mario Gomez will not be missed.