Goodbye, Poldi!: The game against England will be Lukas Podolski’s last. He will contest his 130th game for Germany, third only to Miroslav Klose and Lothar Matthäus. Podolski sits fourth on the all-time scorers list with 48 goals - behind Klose (71), Gerd Müller (68) and Joachim Streich (59). His last appearance will come 4672 days after his first - a 2-0 friendly defeat to Hungary, when Bastian Schweinsteiger also made his debut.
The Venue: Dortmund has provided the DFB team with mixed emotions over the years. There was a 4-1 defeat to the USA eleven years ago. In the 2006 World Cup, an Oliver Neuville goal in the 90th minute gave the host nation a 1-0 win over Poland, but there was heartbreak as Italy claimed a place in the final a few weeks later in a 2-0 win after extra time. Though that is the only game Die Mannschaft have lost in Dortmund. There have been 18 games in Dortmund, with 16 at the Signal Iduna park (15 wins, 1 draw) and two at the neighbouring Rote Erde. This is the first time England will play an International match in Dortmund.
Löw’s Dortmund record: Löw has won two and drawn one of his three games in Dortmund, but he was the assistant to Jürgen Klinsmann in the Italy defeat in 2006. As a club coach Löw collected 1 draw and 2 defeats in Dortmund and as a player he won both games he played in, scoring the winner for KSC in 1984.
The opposition: The English National team is the oldest in the world and played ist first game in 1872. The biggest success of the Three Lions to this point is the 1966 World Cup victory, where they beat Germany 4-2 in the final. It is the only major tournament appearances for the English to this point. The biggest win is 13-0 against Ireland while the heaviest defeat was a 7-1 loss to Hungary. Wayne Rooney is the all-time top scorer with 53 goals so far in his career- At the 2014 World Cup they finished bottom of their group and with Costa Rica, Uruguay and Italy. It was the first time since 1958 they did not get out of the group. At the 2016 Euros they suffered a shock 2-1 defeat in the last 16 to Iceland.
The coach: Former Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough defender Gareth Southgate is the current manager. He won the league cup in 1996 and 2004. He played 57 time for his country and began his coaching career at Middlesbrough He took over the under-21 side and became interim and then permanent manager of England after Sam Allardyce was sacked. Alladyce was forced to leave after one game following his appointment succeeding Roy Hodgson.
Nice to meet you again: Mesut Özil and Shkdran Mustafi will meet with Arsenal teammate Alex Oxlade Chamberlain. Mustafi will also know Ross Barkley and Eric Dier from his time at Everton. Leroy Sané will know John Stones and Raheem
Sterling from Manchester City. Sterling knows Emre Can from time at Liverpool in 2014/15, while Can plays with Nathaniel Clyne and Adam Lallana at the moment. Adam Schürrle played with Gary Cahill at Chelsea between 2013 and 2015.
Southgate did not just miss the penalty in the 1996 Euros semi-final penalty shootout, he also lost the final game at the Old Wembley in 2000 thanks to Dietmar Hamann’s goal.
Four players from Germany’s under-21 Euros victory in 2009 are also in the squad for tomorrow. Benedikt Höwedes, Mats Hummels, Mesut Özil and Sami Khedira all played in the 4-0 win. Joe Hart is England’s only graduate from that night to make the England squad.
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The German national team will meet England in an international friendly in Dortmund on Wednesday, before continuing their qualifying campaign for the 2018 World Cup with a group match against Azerbaijan on Sunday. DFB has collected all the facts ahead of tomorrow’s game with the Three Lions.
Negative Head-to-head: Germany and England have met 34 times, with the Three Lions currently holding the upper hand with 16 wins to 14, while there have been four draws. Germany has not lost to any other country as much as they have against England, and no team has found the back of the German net more than the Island nation (70 times). Die Mannschaft struggles at home against England, winning just three of the fourteen clashes and drawing just three. England have won on their last three visits to Germany. The last home win for Germany was in a friendly in September 1987. The 5-1 loss in München in Qualifying for the 2002 World Cup was particularly painful.
A duel with tradition: The first meeting was just the second for the German national side and the first at home, and the hosts went down to a 5-1 defeat to an English amateur line-up. Less than a year later a German amateur side lost 9-0 to England in Oxford, to this day the biggest defeat of Die Mannschaft’s history. The first full professional meeting was in Berlin in May 1930. That game finished 3-3 and Germany had to wait 60 years for their first victory - a 1-0 win in Hannover thanks to Franz Beckenbauer - after three further draws and 10 defeats.
Goals guaranteed: The German side have been particularly consistent in front of goal in games against England. The last time they failed to score against England was at the 2000 European Championships, when England 1-0 in the group stages.
Goal or no goal? : The 1966 World Cup final remains legendary to this day, as Germany went down 4-2 at Wembley Stadium. The “Wembley-goal” from Geoff Hurst which made the score 3-2 is still a hot topic of discussion and it is to this day unclear as to whether or not all of the ball crossed the line.
On 27 June 2010 Germany gained revenge for Wembley with a 4-1 win in the last 16. Frank Lampard appeared to have equalised to make it 2-2 but the linesman on the near side did not see that the ball had crossed the line- a hot topic for discussion. This ‘goal’ was the one which led to the introduction of goal-line technology. It was also Germany’s biggest win against England and England’s biggest defeat in a world cup.
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Legendary game: A special game between the two was the European Championship Quarterfinal on April 29 1972. Germany won the match 3-1 and won for the first time in England- Gerd Müller scored his 43rd international goal and tied then record scorer Uwe Seeler. Germany went on to claim the crown.
Germany also met England on the way to winning the World Cup in 1990 after a 5-4 win on penalties. Andreas Brehmes gave Germany the lead before Gary Lineker equalised.
Another challenging game was the 1996 European Championship semi-finals. Germany also went through on penalties after a 1-1 draw, as Gareth Southgate missed from the spot before Andrea Möller sealed the shootout win.
In 2000, Dieter Hamann made history by scoring the final goal at the old Wembley in a 1-0 win ahead of the 2002 World Cup.
The last duel was last March in the Olympiastadion in Berlin. Germany lost the friendly 3-2 despite being 2-0 up. Golas from Harry Kane, Jamie Vardy and Eric Dier turned the match around. It was the first time since a 3-2 Euros qualification match in Bulgaria that Germany had lost after having a two-goal advantage.
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Goodbye, Poldi!: The game against England will be Lukas Podolski’s last. He will contest his 130th game for Germany, third only to Miroslav Klose and Lothar Matthäus. Podolski sits fourth on the all-time scorers list with 48 goals - behind Klose (71), Gerd Müller (68) and Joachim Streich (59). His last appearance will come 4672 days after his first - a 2-0 friendly defeat to Hungary, when Bastian Schweinsteiger also made his debut.
The Venue: Dortmund has provided the DFB team with mixed emotions over the years. There was a 4-1 defeat to the USA eleven years ago. In the 2006 World Cup, an Oliver Neuville goal in the 90th minute gave the host nation a 1-0 win over Poland, but there was heartbreak as Italy claimed a place in the final a few weeks later in a 2-0 win after extra time. Though that is the only game Die Mannschaft have lost in Dortmund. There have been 18 games in Dortmund, with 16 at the Signal Iduna park (15 wins, 1 draw) and two at the neighbouring Rote Erde. This is the first time England will play an International match in Dortmund.
Löw’s Dortmund record: Löw has won two and drawn one of his three games in Dortmund, but he was the assistant to Jürgen Klinsmann in the Italy defeat in 2006. As a club coach Löw collected 1 draw and 2 defeats in Dortmund and as a player he won both games he played in, scoring the winner for KSC in 1984.
The opposition: The English National team is the oldest in the world and played ist first game in 1872. The biggest success of the Three Lions to this point is the 1966 World Cup victory, where they beat Germany 4-2 in the final. It is the only major tournament appearances for the English to this point. The biggest win is 13-0 against Ireland while the heaviest defeat was a 7-1 loss to Hungary. Wayne Rooney is the all-time top scorer with 53 goals so far in his career- At the 2014 World Cup they finished bottom of their group and with Costa Rica, Uruguay and Italy. It was the first time since 1958 they did not get out of the group. At the 2016 Euros they suffered a shock 2-1 defeat in the last 16 to Iceland.
The coach: Former Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough defender Gareth Southgate is the current manager. He won the league cup in 1996 and 2004. He played 57 time for his country and began his coaching career at Middlesbrough He took over the under-21 side and became interim and then permanent manager of England after Sam Allardyce was sacked. Alladyce was forced to leave after one game following his appointment succeeding Roy Hodgson.
Nice to meet you again: Mesut Özil and Shkdran Mustafi will meet with Arsenal teammate Alex Oxlade Chamberlain. Mustafi will also know Ross Barkley and Eric Dier from his time at Everton. Leroy Sané will know John Stones and Raheem
Sterling from Manchester City. Sterling knows Emre Can from time at Liverpool in 2014/15, while Can plays with Nathaniel Clyne and Adam Lallana at the moment. Adam Schürrle played with Gary Cahill at Chelsea between 2013 and 2015.
Southgate did not just miss the penalty in the 1996 Euros semi-final penalty shootout, he also lost the final game at the Old Wembley in 2000 thanks to Dietmar Hamann’s goal.
Four players from Germany’s under-21 Euros victory in 2009 are also in the squad for tomorrow. Benedikt Höwedes, Mats Hummels, Mesut Özil and Sami Khedira all played in the 4-0 win. Joe Hart is England’s only graduate from that night to make the England squad.
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Runs and trends: Only England and Germany are yet to concede in Qualifying for the 2018 World Cup. Germany have lost just one of the last 13 internationals - the 2-0 defeat to France at last summer’s Euros.
Germany has gone six Internationals without conceding, a record and a run of 558 minutes. The last goal they conceded was from Antoine Griezmann. They have gone eleven of the last thirteen matches without conceding, those two being Italy (1-1) and France (0-2) at EURO 2016 – the only times they conceded in the tournament.
Germany have won all of their last four home matches with clean sheets. The last time they achieved that was 2006, and they are just one win without conceding away from matching their record from 1975 to 1977.
The only Germany player to have featured in all of their last thirteen matches has been Thomas Müller - the friendly against Slovakia on 29th May 2016 was the only one of the last 21 he has missed. Joshua Kimmich is the only one to have played every minute of the last ten matches. He has been one of the young stars of the season, as has Timo Werner, who has received his first call up to the senior national team and could celebrate his debut against England.
In the current World Cup qualification rounds, England have ten points from four games (three wins, one draw), and six goals scored with none conceded, sitting in first place in Group F ahead of Slovenia (eight points), Slovakia (six), Lithuania (five), Scotland (four) and Malta (none). Four days after the Germany meeting, England will be in action on home soil once again, facing Lithuania at Wembley. They are currently placed at 14 in FIFA’s World Rankings, eleven behind third-place Germany. The Three Lions have lost only one of their last twelve matches (seven wins, four draws), their last loss being 1-2 against Iceland in Nice during EURO 2016. Before that, they had just one loss in 16 (nine wins, six draws) – a 0-2 friendly defeat to Spain in November 2015.
England have won five of their last seven friendly matches (one loss, one draw). In 15 of the last 17 they have been on the scoresheet at least once, and have kept clean sheets in five of the last seven. Adam Lallana has scored at least once in his last three international appearances. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is yet to be on the losing side for the national team, contributing to 18 wins and six draws in his 24 caps. John Stones has not missed a minute of any of England’s last five matches, and four of the last five (barring an Adam Lallana penalty) and five of the last seven of England’s goals have been scored with headers.
Landmarks and records: Thomas Müller has scored 36 goals in 83 international appearances, sitting just one behind Germany coach Oliver Bierhoff, who got 37 in 70, the tenth highest in DFB history.
Mario Gomez needs two goals (currently on 29 in 69) to equal Ernst Lehner’s record of 31 in 65 to reach 15th place in the overall list.
If Toni Kroos makes an appearance against England, it will be his 75th international cap.
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