Nothing “friendly” about Germany’s upcoming matches for Hansi Flick, İlkay Gündoğan

In preparation to face Japan on Saturday, for Bayern Munich manager and current Germany boss Hansi Flick recognized that the showdown means a lot more than a normal friendly.

“A very interesting game. They caused us the decisive defeat at the World Cup. I like their football. I can only praise the development they made in recent years. So I’m looking forward to the game and hope we do well,” Flick said (as captured by @iMiaSanMia).

Flick will be looking for widespread improvements over Germany’s recent efforts, which were lackluster at best.

“It’s always about what you learn from the past. We drew a lot of conclusions from the World Cup. We wanted to try a lot of things and by June the experiments were over. Now we have agreed on a philosophy that we conveyed to the team. So far we are happy with it. But we always want to keep the intensity high,” said Flick (as captured by @iMiaSanMia). “After the World Cup I hardly read anything, which was good for me. There are dynamics in football that you can’t predict. I’m proud and also grateful that I can work with these players. It’s about preparing them well. You don’t always have the success you want. That’s currently the case.”

For İlkay Gündoğan, the FC Barcelona midfielder who will wear the captain’s armband, there is nothing “friendly” about the match.

“Tomorrow it’s all about achieving a good result. I think we have enough quality in the team to meet other teams on an equal footing in tournaments. Nevertheless, we have to constantly prove it. If you can’t do this over a longer period of time, you also have to question the quality. So we must now start producing results again,” Gündogan said (as captured by @iMiaSanMia). We are now entering the hot phase before the Euros and it’s about time we start delivering. Kai Havertz said it yesterday: There are no more friendly games now.”