Soccer Football - International Friendly - Germany v Belgium - RheinEnergieStadion, Cologne, Germany - March 28, 2023 Belgium's Kevin De Bruyne celebrates scoring their third goal REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
COLOGNE, Germany (Reuters) -Visitors Belgium battled to a 3-2 win over Germany in a friendly on Tuesday to make it two wins from two matches in the past four days while piling pressure on the embattled Euro 2024 hosts.
With both teams eager to bounce back from their shock group stage World Cup exits in December, it was Belgium who were the better side, earning their first victory over the Germans since 1954.
The Germans were completely outclassed in the first half, as Belgium attacked at will.
They took the lead with a superb five-pass move from deep in their own half as Yannick Carrasco, unmarked and with lots of space on the left, rifled home in the sixth minute.
Before the hosts had any time to recover, Belgium struck again after some more woeful German defending, with Kevin De Bruyne slipping the ball through to Romelu Lukaku to finish from inside the box.
The Belgium striker had also scored a hat-trick in their 3-0 win over Sweden in their opening Group F Euro 2024 qualifier on Friday and he could have added another goal in the 20th when he rattled the bar with a powerful header.
The Germans, who beat Peru 2-0 on Saturday in their first international since their World Cup exit in Qatar, earned a penalty on the stroke of halftime and forward Niclas Fuellkrug converted for his sixth goal in six international matches.
Despite a livelier second half, the hosts conceded a third as De Bruyne finished from another swift Belgium move as the German defence was caught napping once more.
Serge Gnabry cut the deficit in the 88th minute but it was not enough to deny new Belgium coach Domenico Tedesco a second win from two matches.
"We were far too passive and did not put them under any pressure," said Germany coach Hansi Flick. "Belgium used this mercilessly. We had to change things around a bit to find stability."
"You could see that we have a lot of work in front of us. We want to be more active and we did it better after about 30 minutes. For us, with an eye on the future, that's where we have to work on. For everyone to work together."
(Reporting by Karolos GrohmannEditing by Toby Davis)
