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Cool from the penalty spot: İlkay Gündoğan
Photo:
Alexander Hassenstein / Getty Images
The German national soccer team also won their seventh game under national coach Hansi Flick.
In Yerevan, the DFB team, which had many substitutes, defeated hosts Armenia 4-1 (2-0) and finished the World Cup qualifying with 27 points from ten games as group winners.
Germany qualified ahead of schedule for the Qatar World Cup next year.
The German team lost points in the 1: 2 against North Macedonia, when the national coach was still called Joachim Löw.
In the last group game in Armenia, Kai Havertz scored the 1-0 for the guests (15th minute), İlkay Gündoğan (45th + 4 / penalty, 50th) scored twice, Jonas Hofmann scored the final score (64th).
Henrich Mchitarjan had previously scored a penalty for the Armenians (59th).
Two German players played a special role in the victory.
On the one hand there was Hofmann.
At 1-0, the Mönchengladbach player, who started on the right wing, provided the necessary dynamism.
He played a one-two with Thomas Müller, dribbled to just before the baseline and crossed flat into the middle, where Havertz steered the ball from the center forward position with a contact into the far corner (15th).
Hofman later hit the ball deep in the Armenian half after winning the ball for the German team to make it 4-1, it was his second international goal, the first he had in the first leg against Armenia in a 6-0 win.
The second particularly noticeable DFB player was Gündoğan.
Twice he prepared good German scoring chances: In the beginning he initiated a shot from the post by Havertz with a brilliant action (5th), later his lifted pass led to an opportunity for Sané, who did not get the ball optimally (23rd).
Armenia's goalkeeper lets Gündoğan's shot slip through
He also scored two goals himself.
First he invited Armenia's goalkeeper Stanislaw Buchnew from the point (45th + 4) after Florian Neuhaus had been fouled in the penalty area and the video referee had reported the offense.
Armenia's Buchnew played a major role in his second goal after the break.
The keeper did not fend off Gündoğan's barely placed 20-meter shot;
the ball bounced on his foot and from there behind the line (50th).
And Armenia?
The number 89 in the Fifa world rankings (and framed by Gabon and Jordan) had a long way to go to the German goal after winning the ball, a consequence of the very deep defense.
Only once did the Armenians make it dangerously into the DFB team's penalty area in the first half, but at the end of a remarkable combination Eduard Sperzjan shot just over the gate (27th).
Otherwise, the hosts usually did not finish their counterattacks.
The fact that a goal still succeeded was due to the fact that DFB man Neuhaus committed a foul in his own penalty area.
Mchitarjan, once playmaker from Borussia Dortmund and now with AS Roma, transformed confidently (59th).
With the Hofmann hit a little later, the guests ensured that there was no tension.
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