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Srdjan Babic 56′
Srdjan Babic 3′ (OG) Florian Wirtz 14′ Brajan Gruda 50′
Germany kept their hopes of reaching the UEFA Nations League quarter-finals intact as they eased to a 3-1 win over Serbia.
Serbia had been ordered to play the Group A2 game behind closed doors as punishment for racist and discriminatory behaviour in previous games with Greece and the Netherlands.
As a result, the contest was watched by 5,000 children in Belgrade, where Serbia’s relegation from Group A was confirmed as they finished the match with nine men.
Germany took a third-minute lead as Kai Havertz’s glancing header from Maximilian Mittelstadt’s corner was inadvertently turned into his own net by Srdan Babic.
Florian Wirtz then doubled Germany’s lead after Havertz was denied by Vanja Milinkovic-Savic following a throughball from Aleksandar Pavlovic, the Liverpool man seeing the Serbia goalkeeper get a hand to his dinked follow-up before he bundled the ball over the line.
Havertz and Jonathan Tah both wasted gilt-edged chances to make it 3-0, but Brajan Gruda left Serbia with a mountain to climb with a stunning individual goal on his debut for his country.
Gruda capped a wonderful run by firing into the bottom-right corner from the edge of the area, before Babic atoned somewhat for his earlier error as he pulled one back on the rebound after Marc-Andre ter Stegen had kept out Stefan Gudelj’s header.
But Vanja Dragojevic saw red for Serbia in the 74th minute following a VAR review for a rash foul on Joshua Kimmich, making the possibility of a comeback very remote, and Andrija Zivkovic followed him in being dismissed in the 89th minute, receiving successive yellow cards for dissent.
Serbia’s miserable winless campaign will end against Greece on Monday, when Germany will be hoping for a favour.
Die Mannschaft are level on points with Greece after they were pummelled 7-0 by leaders Netherlands. However, should Germany beat the Oranje, then they will qualify regardless of the result in Greece, with Group A2’s surprise package set to miss out if the top three teams all finish level due to battering their goal difference took in Amsterdam.
World
| # | Team | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Last 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netherlands | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 8 | W W D W |
| 2 | Greece | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 8 | L D D W |
| 3 | Germany | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 5 | W D W L |
| 4 | Serbia | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 8 | -5 | 0 | L L L L |
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