Germany´s Loew cracking the whip

Germany coach Joachim Loew is to crack the whip as he bids to get his men shipshape for the resumption of his team’s World Cup qualifying campaign.

Die Mannschaft are currently looking strong in European qualifying Group Four with ten points from their opening four fixtures to open up a four-point gap over Russia and Wales.

But Loew indicated Tuesday he would be putting his squad, who face Norway in a friendly international on Wednesday, through their paces to glean up-to-date data on their sprint and endurance capacity.

Loew wants to have the information available ahead of upcoming qualifiers against Liechtenstein in Leipzig on March 28 and Wales on April 1 in Cardiff.

In the meantime, he explained he had picked Norway as Wednesday’s opponents seeing the Scandinavians as a tough and physical side, despite the fact that their recent form has been patchy.

“We chose to meet Norway for this friendly as their defensive organisation can be compared with that of our next two adversaries, Wales and Liechtenstein,” Loew said.

“We expect to be confronted with defensive-minded teams, such as Norway, on those occasions,” said Loew, whose side has won 13 and drawn five of its last 19 outings and is on a run of seven straight victories.

Forecasting a tough match, Loew said he wanted to see “more passion” than in the recent friendly loss to England in Berlin.

With the out-of-sorts Lukas Podolski dropped Miroslav Klose and Mario Gomez will form a strike tandem while youngster Rene Adler will be between the sticks.

“Our target this year is to win our ticket to the World Cup as quickly as possible,” said Loew, who took over the reins from Jurgen Klinsmann after the last World Cup on home soil in 2006.

Loew added he would be reconnoitring a potential base for the finals, as well as taking the chance to run the rule over rival top sides, when he and his assistants visit South Africa for the Confederations Cup from June 11 to 28.

Stuttgart’s Gomez said meanwhile he would like one day to play in Spain, although he is still believed to be in line next for a move to Bayern Munich, who have been tracking him for months.

“I said a while back that Spain would be a dream for me and that’s still the case. But if that will happen in two or ten years I can’t say,” the 23-year-old told reporters.

Gomez is under contract to Stuttgart until 2012 but Bayern are believed to be ready to offer 25 million euros for his services, despite his poor showing at Euro 2008.