Leon Goretzka has said that it was no accident that the second Russia 2017 semi-final was as good as over after just eight minutes. By that time, Goretzka had scored his second goal inside 109 seconds to put Germany on course for a 4-1 victory over Mexico.
“The important thing was the way we started the game,” said the Budweiser Man of the Match afterwards. “We had big plans, as it hadn’t really worked out in the previous games. Against Chile in particular we were caught off guard.
“We’d discussed that beforehand and implemented it well today. After getting through the group stage our objective was to reach the final. We’ve done that convincingly. Now we want to win the title and reward ourselves for our performances so far.”
Mexico coach Juan Carlos Osorio was disappointed after his side’s 4-1 loss, but felt his side had “deserved a better result”. “They were very efficient and we gave them too much room, but we should have scored at least one or two more goals,” he added. “We had enough chances to do so. Even after conceding early on we had the mental strength to fight back.”
Osorio’s counterpart Joachim Low reflected on “an intense game”. “That the team managed to do what we’d discussed during our preparations for the match was both important and impressive,” said the Germany coach.
“Mexico try to impose their game on their opponents but we showed that we wanted to win and dominate. We did that superbly, especially in the first 15 or 20 minutes. Our young players deserve credit for that. We got what we wanted, but you can’t count on that happening before the game. It was a wonderful performance.”
