Süle & Toljan secure Olympic medal

Just like throughout the group stage and in the quarterfinal, Süle and Toljan made the starting eleven. Süle played alongside Matthias Ginter in the centre of defence, with Toljan at right-back. Both played the full 90 minutes.

Head coach Horst Hrubesch’s team started the game strongly and took the lead after just nine minutes through Leipzig’s Lukas Klostermann. An intensive match followed, in which Germany had the bigger share of chances on goal.

Nigeria were dangerous on the counter attack but the central-defensive partnership of Süle and Ginter were as strong as always and easily dealt with any dangerous attacks. Serge Gnabry, Lars Bender and Davie Selke had further good opportunities for Germany, but it was Nils Petersen of SC Freiburg who bagged the deserved second goal of the match and his sixth of the tournament in the 89th minute.

The excitement for the chance to return to Rio and fight for a gold medal was clear to see on the faces of both TSG players at the final whistle. Niklas Süle: "We are all happy to be playing in the final. We will never get this chance again. It will be a great experience for us, but also for the manager in his last game. It is a huge thing and we want to go and get gold. When we played Mexico in the first game, nobody would have expected this. We are an exceptional team."

Jeremy Toljan: "We were all delighted, but there was more of a feeling of quiet anticipation in the dressing room. We didn’t say a lot as everyone processed the fact that we had actually made it to the final. We are looking forward to the match at the Maracana against Brazil and we will give it all we’ve got once again. We want to win but we are already very proud that we have secured at least silver."

With progression to the final, the Germany team have secured themselves a medal. On Saturday (22:30 CEST), the colour of the medal will be decided. Their opponents at the Maracana are hosts Brazil.