Preview: Germany – Australia

(GSM) – Germany have not won the World Cup in 20 years but the ‘Mannschaft’ will be looking to end the drought this time around. Australia however, are no easy opponents to open your tournament against.

Ahead of a final tournament, Germany are rarely regarded as top favorites. The same applies this year but the team is known to improve from match to match. This allowed them to reach the final of Euro 2008, although they ended up losing 1-0 to Spain.

The Germans convinced in qualifying, winning eight of their ten games and drawing the remaining two. In the build-up to this tournament, Joachim Löw’s men beat Malta, Hungary and Bosnia-Herzegovina in friendlies.

But there was a major set-back as well as star player and regular captain Michael Ballack suffered a serious injury in the English FA Cup final and as such has to miss this World Cup.

Australia left the OFC zone to join the Asian Football Confederation ahead of this World Cup’s qualifying campaign, and it seems to have paid off as the ‘Socceroos’ finished first in their final round group, ahead of Asian giants Japan.

The team’s preparation for this tournament was mostly good with wins over New Zealand and Denmark. The most recent match however, was lost 3-1 against the USA.

The team includes the experienced goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer, as well as names like Jason Culina, Vince Grella and Harry Kewell.

Germany and Australia also met in the group phase of the 2005 Confederations Cup, with the European hosts winning the spectacular game 4-3.

This Sunday’s match is scheduled for a 20:30 local time start and is played at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium. The referee is Mexican Marco Rodriguez.