22′ Belarus only have four points to their name so far in the group, and all of them came against Estonia. They’ve probably completed about four passes in this game so far.
20′ Martynovich pulls a penalty-box Cruyff turn out of nowhere to bamboozle Werner, but his clearance upfield gives the ball straight back to Germany. Kroos then rockets one into the top-left corner from the edge of the area, until the ball rolls away and everybody realises it was actually into the side-netting.
19′ Big ‘just mucking about’ energy from Germany here, despite the score being goalless. Klostermann heads a ball over the top down to Werner at the right corner of the area, and he hits it first time for no reason other than he feels like it. High and wide.
18′ Goretzka looks to chip a pass over the top to Gnabry, but it’s cleared away from him at the edge of the six-yard box. Kroos then shoots low from the edge of the area toward the bottom-right corner, but it’s a fairly simple save for Gutor.
17′ Germany are going through the gears now. Werner gets in behind down the right and does the right thing, pulling it back along the line of the six-yard box, but Gnabry just can’t stretch enough to prod it in.
16′ Klostermann shoots from 25 yards out after a corner is cleared, but first it just over the bar.
15′ Brilliant save from Gutor! Werner can’t control a ball into the area – if he knew how much time he had, he might have taken it down more easily – but the ball breaks towards Ginter at the right corner of the penalty area. He hits it first time, hard and low across goal, but the keeper gets a firm right hand to it and tips it wide.
14′ We haven’t really seen anything of Gnabry tonight. He’s been shunted up front after his brilliant recent scoring record for Germany, but he hasn’t had so much of a sniff of a chance yet. Klostermann is having a nice time, though.
12′ Goretzka shows a neat bit of footwork on the right, but can only win a throw-in with the Belarus defence doubling up on him. Werner heads Klostermann’s cross from the right up into the air for an easy catch for Gutor, before Neuer charges out to the halfway line to mop up the Belarus keeper’s kick downfield.
11′ Kimmich gets a chance to cut in from the left and shoot from just outside the area following a quickly-taken short corner, but he hoiks it well over the crossbar.
10′ A scare for Germany! Laptev gets in behind and should probably score, but he seems to panic goes wide before shooting straight at Neuer – but the flag was up anyway.
9′ Germany have had all of the ball so far and have almost exclusively looked to use the right flank, where Klostermann is playing like a winger and Ginter is pushing high and wide.
8′ Gundogan is fouled by Maevski in the centre-circle. Germany attempt to string a few passes together, but the final ball towards Werner is again overhit and goes straight through to the keeper.
7′ Klostermann does really well down the right, getting past his man and keeping the ball in at the byline before pulling it back to Gundogan at the edge of the area, but he can’t get a clean connection on his first-time effort and it’s blocked at the edge of the six-yard box.
5′ Polyakov does well to shield the ball out for a goal kick with Klostermann looking to latch onto a slightly overhit through ball down the right channel.
4′ While Germany haven’t yet secured their qualification for Euro 2020, their form hasn’t exactly been poor. They’ve only lost one game, the 4-2 reverse against the Netherlands, and haven’t conceded a single goal against any other team in the group.
3′ Neuer gives Klostermann a nasty chipped pass to control under pressure in the right-back spot, but he does well enough and Germany play their way out. Ginter makes a good run forward out of defence and delivers a cross from wide on the right, but an unmarked Goretzka gets his header all wrong and it flies over.
2′ Germany get an early corner on the right, which Kroos takes. It’s towards Werner at the near post, but he can’t get a telling touch on the ball and it’s cleared away for a throw-in.
1′ We’re off! Germany get us underway. Looking like a flat 4-4-2 out of possession for the away side.
The players are coming out of the tunnel and we’re almost ready to go. National anthems up first.
Germany have only played Belarus twice before. There was a 2-2 friendly draw in 2008, and a 2-0 win for Low’s side earlier in this campaign. Leroy Sane and Marco Reus got the goals back in June.
Werner, Gnabry and Goretzka are apparently lining up in some sort of front three, so we’ll keep an eye on how they operate. Belarus will hope to take some lessons tonight into the play-off they’ll face as a last chance qualification.
SUBS: Nikolai Zolotov, Aleksandr Pavlovets, Oleg Veretilo, Maksim Skavysh, Aleksandr Sachivko, Evgeni Yablonski, Sergey Chernik, Sergey Kislyak, Dmitry Bessmertny, Anton Chichkan, Vladislav Klimovich, Vitali Lisakovich.
BELARUS (4-1-4-1): Aleksandr Gutor; Denis Polyakov, Nikita Naumov, Aleksandr Martynovich, Sergey Matveychik; Ivan Maevski; Igor Stasevich, Pavel Nekhajchik, Stanislav Dragun, Yuri Kovalev; Denis Laptev.
SUBS: Sebastian Rudy, Julian Brandt, Jonas Hector, Jonathan Tah, Suat Serdar, Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Gian-Luca Waldschmidt, Nadiem Amiri, Niklas Stark, Bernd Leno.
GERMANY (4-3-3): Manuel Neuer; Nico Schulz, Robin Koch, Matthias Ginter, Lukas Klostermann; Toni Kroos, Joshua Kimmich, Ilkay Gundogan; Timo Werner, Serge Gnabry, Leon Goretzka.
Tied on points with the Netherlands but behind them due to their head-to-head results, Germany can secure qualification tonight by bettering Northern Ireland’s result as they face the Dutch in Belfast tonight. Belarus are just hoping to stay ahead of Estonia and avoid last place, and they hold a three-point lead over them going into tonight’s games.
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of this Euro 2020 qualifying match, as Joachim Low’s Germany look to secure qualification from Group C against Mikhail Markhel’s Belarus on home soil in Monchengladbach.
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