Mosquitoes have been beaten, now reality bites for anxious Germany
Hosts ponder whether to start Füllkrug up front with potential for a stormy night against unfancied Denmark
First, the insects. There has been an infestation of mosquitoes at Germany’s training camp in Herzogenaurach in Bavaria, one that has claimed numerous victims, with a fortnight of humid weather rendering the squad’s outdoor viewing garden – which sits right next to a forest – almost unusable in the evenings. “I have already been bitten two or three times,” the striker Maximilian Beier admitted. “But if that’s the biggest problem, then fine …”
Then, the thunder. The DWD, Germany’s equivalent of the Met Office, is warning of severe thunderstorms, torrential rain, large hailstones, hurricane-force winds and perhaps even tornadoes across the west of the country on Saturday: perfectly timed to coincide with the crunch last-16 clash against Denmark in Dortmund.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters
© Photograph: Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters