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TENERO, Switzerland (AP) -If Germany's players are to be believed, they're enjoying the pressure that the European Championship defeat to Croatia has put on them.
Germany needs to at least draw Monday's Group B game against co-host Austria in Vienna to advance to the quarterfinals and keep alive its chances of a record fourth title.
"I m looking very much forward to this game, 50,000 people in the stadium, what else could you want," central defender Christoph Metzelder said Saturday.
And he isn't the only one looking forward to the match.
"It's a super game for us," midfielder Torsten Frings said. "We can kick out the host team, it would raise our confidence, it would make up for the mistakes we made against Croatia."
Germany went into the tournament as the bookmakers' favorite and beat Poland 2-0 in its opening match. But then it lost 2-1 to Croatia and now finds itself in the tricky situation of playing one of the hosts that still has a chance of advancing itself.
Austria created plenty of chances in the game against Croatia, which it lost 1-0, and against Poland, when it drew 1-1. If the Austrians finally start finding the target, Germany could be in trouble against the lowers-ranked team in the tournament in beat 3-0 in a friendly in February.
"The mood is tenser of course, and we are responsible for it," Frings said. "But we know we have a good team and if we execute our game well, we will win."
"We played a very bad game against Croatia and it won't happen again," he said.
Croatia has advanced already before playing Poland and is sure of winning the group. Germany has three points and a better head-to-head record against Poland, which has one point. Austria has one point.
"With all due respect, if we regain our own strengths, we will win," Metzelder said. "As the German national team, we always have pressure and we can handle it, it's a challenge for us.
Frings agreed.
"We've shown often enough that we can deal with it," he said. "And we'll want to show Monday that we are a good, functioning team. I see no reason to change anything in our approach just because we lost a game. We've won many more games with our system in the last four year.
