Germany vs Iceland Preview

Germany will begin their World Cup qualification campaign on Wednesday when they welcome Iceland to the Schauinsland-Reisen-Arena in Duisburg city in western Germany.

The hosts head into this game unbeaten in 33 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches and are favourites to finish top of Group J with relatively easy opponents Romania, North Macedonia, Armenia and Liechtenstein still to come.

However, Joachim Low’s boys’ last outing saw them suffer an embarrassing 6-0 drubbing at the hands of Spain, meaning that no draw will be underestimated in this tournament. Before that loss, however, they were unbeaten in 13 games while averaging 2.4 goals per game.

They will hope to get back into that form as they begin to build for the post-Joachim Low era.

Iceland are looking to appear in the World Cup for the second time in a row after they won their last World Cup group to qualify for Russia 2018.

The visitors alongside Germany have been billed to qualify from this group, and so they will be looking to show their intent in this opening match.

However, Arnar Viðarsson’s men enter this round of matches on a run of five straight losses in all competitions. In fact, in their last eight games, they have won just once; a 2-1 win over Group J opponents Romania in October last year.

They will hope for an improved performance against Germany who are gradually transitioning under Low’s management.

Both teams have met twice in recent history with Germany winning one of those meetings while the other ended in a stalemate.