Germany's national team will face Australia in Kaiserslautern on Wednesday (20:30 CET) in their first international fixture of 2015. DFB.de presents stats and facts for the game between the World Champions and the Asian Champions.
Record I: World Champions Germany begin their 2015 international calendar with a fixture against Asian Champions Australia in Kaiserslautern. It will be the 899th match in the history of the German national side. Since the inaugural game on April 5th 1908 Germany have recorded 522 wins, 182 draws and suffered 194 defeats. Germany's goal difference over the 898 national games, in which 915 players have represented the national side, is 2017 for and 1067 against.
Record II: The game against Australia will be Joachim Löw's 119th match as Germany manager since his debut in August 2006. His record: 80 wins, 21 draws and 17 defeats. In his time as manager, Löw has used 99 players, 74 of which being new players. The last debutant to make an appearance was 1. FC Köln's Jonas Hector in the EURO qualifier against Gibraltar.
Record III: The DFB team will face Australia for the fifth time in its history. Germany emerged victorious on three of the previous four meetings, with only their last encounter ending in a 2-1 defeat in Mönchengladbach on March 29th 2011: David Carney and Luke Wilkshire were on target for Australia, with Mario Gomez bagging the goal for Germany. The goal record between both nations is in Germany's favour with 12 scored and 5 conceded.
Record players: Lothar Matthäus is the most capped player for Germany. Between 1980 and 2000 he made 150 appearances for the German team. Lukas Podolski holds the most caps from Germany's current squad with 121 appearances, whilst Bastian Schweinsteiger (108) has also made more than 100 appearances for his country.
Record goal scorers: Miroslav Klose is Germany's all-time top goalscorer with 71 goals, only just ahead of the legendary Gerd Müller (68 goals). Müller took just 62 games to rack up his tally, while Klose made 137 appearances before retiring after the World Cup triumph in 2014. From Germany's current squad Lukas Podolski has bagged the most goals (47), followed by FC Bayern players Thomas Müller (26) and Bastian Schweinsteiger (23).
Referee: England's Michael Oliver will be in charge in Kaiserslautern. He will be assisted by Stuart Burt and Peter Kirkup on the sidelines, with Germany's FIFA referee Christian Dingert acting as the fourth official.