GERMANY 0                                   ARGENTINA 1                     World Cup football home page
                                                           Sorin 47

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This friendly between Germany and Argentina took place on Wednesday 17 April 2002 at Stuttgart in Germany. The teams that played in the match are shown below:
 
The German starting lineup was Lehmann, Metzelder, Linke, Nowotny, Frings, Jeremies, Ramelow, Boehme, Ballack, Bierhoff, Klose

The Argentinian starting team was Cavallero, Pochettino, Samuel, Quiroga, Almeya, Sorin, Aimar, C Lopez, Zanetti, G Lopez, Gonzalez
 
 
In this match Argentina showed why they are one of the favourites to win the World Cup 2002 with a dominating competitive performance in Germany.

The game started with several tough tackles and the German Jeremies should really have been sent off midway through the first half for his tackle on Aimar, but he received only a yellow card.

Aimar had the best chance for Argentina in the first half when he got past two defenders in the penalty box but then messed up his shot.

2 minutes into the second half Argentina scored - Gustavo Lopez crossed from the right wing and Sorin dived in to head the ball into the net: 1-0.

Twenty minutes later, Germany almost equalised against the run of play - Samuel brought down Klose and Ballack put the free kick just wide.

Argentina had not been playing well recently and so this result must have given them the confidence they needed - both teams wanted to win and it was not much of a friendly but Argentina deserved the win over a weakened German side (missing Kahn, Hamann, Deisler and Scholl through injury).

 

Click here to see how England beat Paraguay 4-0 on the same night.