Loew recalls Enke and Gomez back for Germany

Germany coach Joachim Loew said Thursday he is set to recall goalkeeper Robert Enke and striker Mario Gomez for Saturday’s World Cup qualifier against Liechtenstein in Leipzig.

Germany top Group 4 with nearest rivals Russia four points behind, but Loew knows his side can ill-afford to drop points either on Saturday or on April 1 against Wales in Cardiff before they travel to Moscow in October.

Back-to-back home defeats at the hands of England and Norway recently mean Germany need a convincing win at Leipzig’s Zentralstadion to stay on course for South Africa next year.

Having recovered from a broken hand, Hanover’s Robert, 31, is back in goal while an ankle injury to Bayern Munich’s Miroslav Klose means Stuttgart’s Mario Gomez will partner Bayern’s Lukas Podolski up front.

“Robert has showed good form in recent weeks and we trust him,” said Loew in Wednesday’s press conference.

With Leverkusen goalkeeper Rene Adler nursing an elbow injury, Enke will keep his place to face the Welsh in Cardiff four days later unless he picks up an injury.

And Leverkusen striker Stefan Kiessling passed a fitness test on Thursday and looks set to be included on the bench.

Hamburg winger Piotr Trochowski is out with a knee injury, so Gomez is expected to start having scored seven goals in his last eight league games, despite a poor performance at Euro 2008 last June.

“Independent of our personnel problems, we want to pick up six points,” said Loew on Wednesday.

And with the friendly 2-1 defeat against England last November and the 1-0 reversal to Norway in February still fresh in the memory here, captain Michael Ballack is urging an immediate response from Germany.

“We are determined to compensate for those defeats and we want two unconditional victories,” said Ballack.