
Germany registered their second win under the new coach Hansi Flick in Stuttgart on Sunday night. Florian Wirtz started on the bench. Serge Gnabry (2), Marco Reus and Timo Werner put Germany 4-0 up in the first half and Jonas Hofmann increased the lead at the start of the second 45. Flick made a double substitution on the hour mark with Wirtz coming on for Marco Reus. The Leverkusen player was involved in the sixth and final goal scored by Karim-David Adeyemi as he provided a first assist for the Germany senior team with an excellent one-two setting up Adeyemi.
Chile played Ecuador in the capital Quito last night – the game ended all square at 0-0. Charles Aránguiz started the match but went off injured on 82 minutes. The extent of the injury is unclear.
There was a bizarre incident in Sao Paulo late on Sunday evening in the South America clash between Brazil and Argentina. The match was stopped after seven minutes when health authority staff appeared on the touchline to take three Argentinean players off the pitch. Those players, plus a substitute, had allegedly breached quarantine regulations on entering Brazil. After about an hour, the South American Football Association CONMEBOL finally announced the game would be abandoned. Exequiel Palacios was not in the starting eleven. It remains to be seen what happens with the match.
Greece drew 1-1 with Kosovo on Sunday evening; Panos Retsos did not feature in Pristina.
Pohjanpalo scores the winner
Finland faced Kazakhstan in Helsinki on Saturday. Joel Pohjanpalo, who signed a one-year loan deal with Turkish top-flight club Caykur Rizespor on Sunday, scored the only goal of the game on 60 minutes. Lukas Hradecky in goal kept a clean sheet for his team.
Moussa Diaby was in action with France against Ukraine. That was his second inclusion in the senior squad – and for the second time the France coach Didier Deschamps brought on the 21-year-old. Diaby replaced Kingsley Coman on 63 minutes in Kiev. There was no change to the score after he came on with a shot from Diaby only hitting the post (78’).
Andrey Lunev had a quiet Saturday night – he watched Russia take on Cyprus from the subs bench. The match in Nicosia ended in a goalless draw.

Decision made: Germany will submit a bid to the IOC (International Olympic Committee) to host the 2036, 2040 or 2044 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Munich. The representatives of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) voted for Munich over Cologne-Rhine-Ruhr at their extraordinary meeting in Baden-Baden on Saturday 26 September. Berlin had already withdrawn from the vote a few days earlier.
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Former Werkself star Michael Ballack, who won the German Footballer of the Year award in 2002 while playing in Leverkusen, celebrates his 50th birthday on Saturday. Bayer 04 sends him its best wishes!
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A challenging start to what will hopefully be a long journey: The Bayer 04 women’s team kick off their new DFB Pokal campaign on Sunday (14:00 CEST) against second-division leaders FC Viktoria Berlin. Coach Roberto Pätzold expects stiff resistance in the capital – and is counting on his team’s strong away form in the Bundesliga so far this term.
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Attention Werkself fans: In addition to tickets for the floodlit home match against Werder Bremen, tickets are now also available for the Bayer 04 women’s team’s two subsequent fixtures against Eintracht Frankfurt and Hamburger SV at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium. Both matches in the Google Pixel Women’s Bundesliga will take place at family-friendly kick-off times on Saturday afternoons. Here is the latest information on matchday ticket sales.
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