Football
ESPN staff 8y

Germany 'have to improve' to reach Euro 2016 glory - Joachim Low

Germany manager Joachim Low demanded improvement from his team after a convincing 3-0 against Slovakia in the round of 16 at Euro 2016.

Mario Gomez, Julian Draxler and Jerome Boateng all scored for Germany as the Group C winners advanced to the quarterfinals, setting up a match against the winner of Monday's Spain-Italy match.

But Low maintained that to have a chance to follow up their 2014 World Cup win with a European Championship, the team must tighten up in defence and not be wasteful with chances.

Low told a news conference: "Of course, like any other side, we've had our problems getting into the tournament because there are a lot of tactics in the group stage as teams can go through with three points.

"With all due respect to Slovakia, this is no pointer that we are going to dominate this tournament. We are still going to have to improve. In fact we have to improve if we want to have a say in this tournament.

"We can't give our opponents any space in the next game and we have to take our chances as we won't get as many. Both [Italy and Spain] are among the favourites; Italy are incredibly strong in defence and have a very good attack as we saw in the first two games.

"The Spanish have the best attacking game we've seen over recent years. The two sides differ but they are both real favourites."

Goalscorer Gomez, who was not with the team in Brazil, has now scored twice for Germany at this year's Euro and said he is enjoying his return to major international competition.

"Ultimately, I'm just glad that the team and the coach trust me," Gomez said after the match. "I gave my all. It's never easy in this sort of game because you just have to try to find space in the penalty box even if there isn't any.

"The defence have also done a good job, even if the opposition had one or two chances. We still haven't conceded a goal. It's a lot of fun with this team."

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