Germany assistant coach Dennis Lamby said here on Friday that senior team coach Joachim Loew has sent a message to the FIFA U-17 World Cup team.
Lamby told reporters after Germany’s second training session of the day --- they had one in the morning and returned to the first practice pitch at Salt Lake stadium at 8pm ---- that Loew has, in his message, told the boys he is interested in what they are doing in India.
The reason for training in the evening, Lamby said, is to get the players to adjust to the conditions that would prevail at match-time in Sunday’s quarter-final here. But because they had also trained on Friday morning, the evening session lasted less than 30 minutes.
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Lamby said midfielder Yannik Keitel is recovering from injury and could be doubtful. “We don’t know about him yet as he is pursuing an individual recovery programme,” said Lamby. “There are others with a few niggles but we hope everyone else will be available.”
“Brazil will be a very, very strong team. We have to be at our best in defence and in front to match them. It will be a tough game between two good football nations,” said Lamby.
{{/usCountry}}“Brazil will be a very, very strong team. We have to be at our best in defence and in front to match them. It will be a tough game between two good football nations,” said Lamby.
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With the 7-1 World Cup semi-final win coming up as regularly as the rain in every interaction with the media here, Lamby too was asked whether that match means anything in the context of Sunday’s face-off.
“That was three years ago and between different teams. While we are proud of our national team’s performance in that game, this is a different World Cup and what happened in 2014 means nothing now,” he said.