DUSHANBE, 30.06.2017. /NIAT «Khovar»/. Reigning world champions Germany secured a berth in the final game for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup trophy after cruising past their rivals Mexico 4-1 on Thursday night in the tournament’s semifinal match at Fisht Stadium in Russia’s southern resort city of Sochi, TASS reports.
Before the kick-off of the match, huge screens at Fisht Stadium played recorded video messages of German and Mexican teams’ captains, Julian Draxler and Rafa Marquez respectively, who called on everyone to avoid any sort of discrimination and racism in football.
The score was unsealed into 6th minute of the match by Germany after its midfielder Leon Goretzka received a flawless assist from the right wing and cannoned the ball into the Mexican net from the central position.
Less than two minutes later it was 22-year-old Goretzka again to put another netter for his team and increase the advantage over Mexico in the knock-out match for the birth in the final of the 2017 Confederations Cup to 2-0.
Despite the added time of one minute in the first half, the teams went for the ten-minute break with a solid advantage in score of 2-0 in favor of the German squad.
Starting in the second half of the game, the Mexican team kept pressing with its offensive on the German goal, but was penalized in less than ten minutes with a yellow card, which was handed over to forward Raul Jimenez.
Four minutes later after the incident, Germany’s Timo Werner kicked a wide-open shot into the goal of their Mexican opponents and upped the lead of his team to 3-0, which was much to the delight of German Head Coach Joachim Low as he was seen smiling sitting back on his bench near the pitch.
Germany’s Emre Can was the first from his team to be booked by a referee with a yellow card tonight as he hard-landed on a foot of one of his Mexican opponents in an attempt to steal a ball.
Team Mexico kept the tempo even in the closing minutes of the match trying to come back and Marco Fabian’s powerful shot found a way past the German goaltender to bring the score to 3-1 with the clock ticking away the seconds before the final whistle.
However, about a minute later (referees added three minutes to the match) Germany delivered another strike on Mexico and the goal from midfielder Amin Younes sealed the final score in Sochi at 4-1.
After playing a total of 67 minutes tonight and scoring two goals against Mexico on two attempts, Leon Goretzka was named «The Man of the Match» and handed a relevant trophy.
Spectators’ turnout on Thursday night at Fisht Arena in Sochi, according to official statistics, hit a figure of 37,923.
Germany and Mexico met previously on ten occasions, with the German squad defeating the Mexican side on four occasions against one lost match, while five more games ended in draws. The German side’s record of scored and missed goals against Mexico in their previous ten matches stands at 20-9.
The match for the third place between Mexico and Portugal will be held at Spartak Arena in Moscow on Sunday, July 2, at 3:00 p.m. Moscow time (12:00 GMT), while the final encounter for the champion’s title is scheduled to start at 9:00 p.m. local time (18:00 GMT) in Russia’s second largest city of Saint Petersburg, which was also the venue for the opening game of this championship.
Germany cleared its Group B matches to reach the semi-final stage of the tournament after defeating Australia 3-2, then finishing the second game against Chile with 1-1 draw and then beating Cameroon 3-1.
This year’s FIFA Confederations Cup is held between June 17 and July 2 at four stadiums in Russia and they are Spartak Stadium in Moscow, St. Petersburg Stadium, Fisht Stadium in Sochi and the Kazan Arena in Kazan.
Initially, the participants in the 2017 Confederations Cup were hosts Russia, 2014 FIFA World Cup Champions Germany, 2015 Copa America Champions Chile, 2015 AFC Asian Cup Champion Australia, 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup winners Mexico, 2016 UEFA Euro Cup champs Portugal, OFC (Oceania Football Confederation) Nations Cup victors New Zealand and 2017 CAF Africa Cup of Nations Champion Cameroon.