Christian Ziege, the head coach of the German under 19s, admits he was disappointed about his side’s performance in their 1-0 over Scotland at the Falkirk Stadium.
Marcel Kärcher of FSV Mainz 05 netted the only goal of the game six minutes after half-time to seal Germany’s second win in their last four matches. The visitors looked impressive in the opening stages with Bayer Leverkusen’s Samed Yesil leading from the front of the 4-2-3-1 system.
However, Ziege was far from convinced about his new-look squad and expected better of the German youngsters.
“I’m not really happy with that. We didn’t play how we should have.” he said.
“Apart from the passing side, there were too many opportunities given to Scotland to go on counter-attacks. We can do better, but after the last game, we wanted to try something a bit different and some people played in positions they normally don’t play. Although we won, and that’s good, we can do much better.
“You could see the weather had a bit of an impact in the first-half. On the far side, you could hardly pass the ball for the rain stopping it. It’s football – the same for both teams.”
Germany will play England and Wales at home in warm-up matches ahead of their European Championship qualifier against Republic of Ireland in Luxembourg.
And the former Liverpool defender hopes his squad can use their experiences against the British sides to help them in round one of Euro qualifying.
He added: “That’s the reason why we play the games – so the guys understand what to expect. Ireland will be the biggest opposition for us in Luxembourg in the qualification stage. We said we would play these friendlies so the team know what it is like.
“Scotland had some good players. To be honest, if they had more courage and personality in their play, like in the second-half when they were 1-0 down, they gave us some difficulties.”
