A clash for control of Group B

Youthful Germany takes on experienced Chile

June 21, 2017 09:49 pm | Updated 09:50 pm IST - KAZAN

Hit-men:  Chile will look to Alexis Sanchez, Arturo Vidal and Eduardo Vargas to turn it on against Germany.

Hit-men: Chile will look to Alexis Sanchez, Arturo Vidal and Eduardo Vargas to turn it on against Germany.

Germany and Chile clash for control of Group B at the Confederations Cup on Thursday with dieMannschafts head coach Joachim Loew talking up the South American champion.

“They have shown in the past few years that they belong to the elite of world football,” said the German boss ahead of the encounter here.

“Chile have fantastic individual players and are flexible tactically like few other teams, they can switch things around several times during a match.”

Both teams have three points with Chile ahead on goal difference after its 2-0 win over Cameroon and Germany’s 3-2 victory against Australia.

Loew, having rested all of his World Cup-winning stars, will match his young guns against an experienced Chile team which won both the 2015 and 2016 Copa America titles.

Both sides are amongst the favourites to win the cup in the St. Petersburg final on July 2.

“They are the rivals who will give us a good idea of what we can accomplish here,” said Chile’s Edson Puch, who started in place of Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez against Cameroon.

Regardless of its inexperience — the entire Germany squad had just 149 caps between them — Marcelo Diaz said facing the World Champion requires a certain mind set.

“In order to play them, we need to be psychologically prepared, at your best, and we are,” said the midfielder. “Our mentality is one of our biggest achievements of this team.”

Loew changed his goalkeeper in each of his last three games and Germany’s shot-stopper Bernd Leno could lose his place having leaked two goals against Australia.

Chile’s Arturo Vidal opened the scoring against Cameroon and he is set to face three Bayern Munich teammates in Joshua Kimmich, Sebastian Rudy and Niklas Suele. Likewise, Arsenal teammates Shkodran Mustafi and Sanchez could line up against each other.

Germany has won all four meetings between the countries in the last 40 years. The most recent was in 2014 when Mario Goetze’s goal sealed a 1-0 friendly win in Stuttgart.

In Thursday’s other Group B game, Australia plays Cameroon in St. Petersburg.

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