HOUSTON, June 13 (Reuters) – \u2060Germany will not underestimate a physical and technical Curacao team in their World \u2060Cup opener, coach Julian Nagelsmann said on Saturday, adding that their success \u200cin the tournament would rest heavily on 40-year-old goalkeeper Manuel Neuer. <\/p>\n
Nagelsmann also said Nathaniel Brown would earn a first World Cup appearance in their Group E opener on Sunday and that importantly for Germany’s chances, \u200bNeuer has found his rhythm in time for the \u2060four-times champions. <\/p>\n
“We trust him a \u2060lot,” Nagelsmann told a news conference. “In order to have a good World Cup we need \u2060Manuel \u200cin top performance and we think he can do that.<\/p>\n
“He didn’t have the rhythm but now he has found the rhythm.”<\/p>\n
The Germans go into the \u2060tournament aiming to restore their dented international reputation after shock \u200bfirst-round exits in 2018 \u200cand 2022.<\/p>\n
Nagelsmann shrugged off questions of why Germany were not considered among the \u2060top favourites this \u200btime around, saying that was something that could be answered after the tournament. <\/p>\n
“When we take a look at the last two World Cups we didn\u2019t perform in a good way so \u2060we won\u2019t be mentioned as a favourite for this \u200btournament,” he said. <\/p>\n
“It is our job to do a perfect World Cup now and then we will be a favourite for the next World Cup.”<\/p>\n
The Germans also play Ivory Coast \u2060and Ecuador in the group but Nagelsmann said the focus was only on a Curacao side consisting of Dutch-raised players with the quality to surprise in the tournament. <\/p>\n
The match also features Nagelsmann as the tournament’s youngest head coach at age 38 facing off \u200bagainst the oldest in 78-year-old Dick Advocaat, though the German \u2060joked he hoped not to be coaching that long.<\/p>\n
“I love my job but I \u200bhope I have some different things to do at \u200cthat age,” he said. “Dick Advocaat is a really \u200bcool coach and has done a brilliant job for Curacao. It is a great compliment for his work.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Michael Kahn, Editing by Toby Davis)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON, June 13 (Reuters) – \u2060Germany will not underestimate a physical and technical Curacao team in their World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,13201,596,85,21418],"class_list":["post-735242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}