"Mannschaft on fire!"

The Germany national team have made an immaculate start to their 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign, with three wins from three game and three clean sheets. Joachim Löw’s side beat the Czech Republic 3-0 in Hamburg on Saturday, before then overcoming Northern Ireland 2-0, three days later. The strong performances thrilled the German fans in the stadium and the public in general. DFB.de has gathered the all the reaction and thoughts to the games in Hamburg and Hanover.

Head coach Joachim Löw:”It’s clear to see that we are playing with unbelievable dominance in our games already. On the other hand, our playing style is varied enough. We have players, who are capable of playing in different positions. In both games we scored different types of goals, which is also very important.”

DFB-President Reinhard Grindel: “It was a brilliant week. We dominated both games and played like World Champions. We controlled both games with good quality football, played with a lot of variety and overall did a good job.

Sami Khedira: In all of the the qualification games, we were aggressive and fully concentrated.

Thomas Müller: The results in the qualifiers speak for themselves, as well as the way we played. We can of course keep improving however.

Müller on the atmosphere: The Northern Irish fans? I thought the Germany fans were actually a lot better. For the Northern Irish fans it was the highlight of their year, obviously they were in good spirits. I find our own fans a lot more noticeable. The weather wasn’t great and the second-half was goalless. We tried to score another goal, but after we scored two goals in the first-half, we talked about controlling the game. Sometimes you have to settle for this. But despite this, I could still here our fans singing and the atmosphere was great.

Mats Hummels: I thought it was cool that our fans went along with and sang an away side’s song in the stadium. It was definitely a fantastic atmosphere.

Mario Götze: We are always glad to be playing in front of a home crowd, especially when the stadium is full.

Northern Ireland head coach Martin O’Neill: The Germany team have tremendous quality. As well as playing great football and having great tactical awareness, they are also incredible athletes.

Czech Republic player Borek Dockal: We felt like Germany always managed to find the right solution. They rotated extremely well and made it very difficult for us.

Ottmar Hitzfeld(after the Czech Republic game ): In this sort of form and with this team German will become World Champions again. The game in Hamburg showed that the team are capable of doing it again. There is so much quality in this team, both going forward and defensively.

Mirko Slomka: “Löw does everything right. The Germany team has learnt a lot recently about how to adapt to their opposition and exploit their weaknesses.

International media reaction

Die Welt: “Germany’s performance against the Czech Republic was their best since the 2014 World Cup. The players are in great form, they’ve found their rhythm and there’s extremely high quality competition for places. If they had performed like this at the Euros in France, they would have been able to win the tournament.”

Rheinische Post online (after the games vs. the Czech Republic): “The Germany national team haven’t put in such a convincing performance, enjoyed their football so much, nor demonstrated so much class for a long time. It was no wonder that there was such a great atmosphere in the stadium.

11Freunde: “Mannschaft on fire. After the Czechs, Northern Ireland then had to also face Germany’s new found form and confidence.”

Sport (Czech Republic): “It was a demonstration of Germany’s quality. The World Champions took their game to a whole new level.”

Dnes (Czech Republic): “The World Champions were too strong. The Czech players must have been relieved when the game was over.”

El Mundo Deportivo (Spain): The Czech Republic suffered due to Germany’s intense play and passing combinations in midfield.”

Gazetta Dello Sport (Italy): “Different opponents, different system, same result - but Germany always steamroll their opponent.”

Sport (Spain): “Germany were flat-out and it doesn’t seem they’ll slow down for a long time.”