Germany manager Joachim Low confirmed prior to the England match that he would be resting a number of key players like Mesut Ozil. This would also allow the opportunity to test a number of new players for the team ahead of the World Cup. However, this has been interpreted as a sign of disrespect towards England, who are not regarded as one of the top teams in the world right now. Low, though, has clarified his comments by saying that he only wants to use his squad strength and look at a number of new players.
Germany qualified for the World Cup with relative ease by managing to do so several weeks prior to the end of the qualification campaign. The team recently suffered badly in the form of injury to Sami Khedira, which would possibly rule him out of the World Cup. Hence, Low needs a player who can do the job as the Real Madrid man has efficiently done in the last few years. Ozil has also been playing constantly since the start of the season, which would wear him out at the start of the World Cup.
“It was clear for me that these two matches against Italy and England, I would use them to try out new players in key positions and what better test for these up-and-coming players than to play in front of a partisan crowd of 80,000 fans spurring their own team on. It was a deliberate acid test for these young players and it’s definitely not the case that we’re fielding a B team or that there’s any lack of respect to our hosts,” said Low.
Due to these reasons, Low will be looking at some of the younger players like Mario Gotze. England do not have such luxury in terms of squad strength.