U21 Euros: TSG trio can't prevent early exit

After the 3-2 defeat to the Netherlands in their opening match, Germany have yet to claim a point in the competition, but can defend their third-place spot against bottom-of-the-group Russia in the final group game on Wednesday at 18.00 CET. The Netherlands and Spain both have six points and will battle it out for the group's top spot.

Rudy, Thesker and Volland will long have felt they could have got a point or even more from the game, something that would have given them the chance to progress to the knock-out phase. The score was still 0-0 as the game entered its final stages, despite Spain piling on the pressure. Germany had some chances in the first half but failed to give David De Gea any cause for concern after the interval. Spain had to wait until the 86th minute to make the breakthrough with Alvaro Morata getting the deserved winner.

A positive from a TSG perspective was the performance of Kevin Volland, who got a place in the starting line-up after former Hoffenheim player Peniel Mlapa's injury, and provided activity in attack before the break. Sebastian Rudy and Stefan Thesker were also among Germany's better players. “Spain are technically outstanding. We never really got into the tackles throughout the whole 90 minutes,” explained Kevin Volland after the match.