Next Sunday, 7th of September 2014, the current World football champions, Germany, will play host to Scotland at Allianz Arena on what will be the first Euro 2016 Qualifying match for both teams.

Germany were somewhat caught by surprise last Wednesday, when Gerardo Martino’s “new” Argentina imposed a heavy 4-2 defeat to their national team at Esprit Arena in Düsseldorf. The Germans were completely tamed for about 50 minutes and allowed their all-time rivals to score four times in that period of time. With plenty of important players sidelined due to injury and some others retired from international football recently, Germany looked somehow uncharacteristic during their clash against a super motivated Argentina that seemed to have left behind that boring and bland football they presented during the World Cup.

Germany are, by far, the best team of their Qualification Group, but that doesn’t mean they will not find any difficulties in granting a place at the European Football Championship that will take place in France in 2016. The Germans will have to measure forces with Scotland, Georgia, Ireland, the debutants Gibraltar and their neighbours and rivals of Poland. In theory, the German Panzer has enough power to rule out all opponents that may come in their way, but football these days is full of surprises and an extra sense of relaxation (caused by their victory at the last Summer’s World Cup) might cause them some unexpected difficulties.

For the match against Scotland, Joachim Löw already knows for sure that he will not be able to count on Bayern Munich's midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger and on Valencia’s defender Shkodran Mustafi, since both of them are sidelined due to injury, but there are still some doubts surrounding the condition of Mesut Özil, who is still struggling with a recent injury.

As for Scotland, to begin their Euro 2016 Qualifying campaign against such a superpower as the Germans is certainly not the dream premiere everyone is expecting, but the Scots do seem to be very confident that they can produce something very positive during their visit to Germany next Sunday.

In a recent interview, West Brom’s midfielder James Morrison expressed his hopes of snatching a good result on the match against the World Champions: "They are world champions, they have some great players and they showed that in the World Cup (...) So it is a big task but one that the lads are all looking forward to and if we play to our best we will give them a stern test."

The current Scottish manager and legendary European footballer player, Gordon Strachan, will not be able to count on the contribution of Christophe Berra and of Andrew Robertson, who are currently struggling with injuries.

The last time both teams measured forces was back in 2003 and the Germans claimed the match with a narrow 2-1 win.

Germany

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - LWWWW

Scotland

Stats: W-3 L-0 D-2

Recent Form - DWWDW

Possible Line-ups

Germany (4-2-3-1) - Neuer - Howedes - Ginter - Boateng - Durm - Kramer - Kroos -  Reus - Götze - Draxler - Müller

Scotland (4-4-1-1) - McGregor - Hutton - Greer - Hanley - Robertson - Brown - Morrison - Mulgrew - Anya - Maloney - Naismith

Sunday, 7th of September 2014 20h45 CET (19h45 GMT)
Allianz Arena(Munich)

Prediction

Germany 2 Scotland 1