No rustiness as Belarus hold Germany

Germany 1-1 Belarus
Belarus enjoyed a morale-boosting first outing since qualifying for the UEFA European Under-21 Championship back in October as they held fellow finalists Germany to a friendly draw in Paderborn on Tuesday.

Wagner opener
Germany coach Horst Hrubesch made five changes to the team beaten 4-0 by the Netherlands on Friday, and his new-look side took the lead through Sandro Wagner after 38 minutes. The visitors were behind for just six minutes, though, as Sergei Kislyak earned Belarus a deserved share of the spoils when curling a free-kick beyond Florian Fromlowitz.

Crisp football
Belarus may not have played since beating Turkey in both legs of their play-off for this summer's finals in Sweden, but they showed no rustiness as they took the game to their hosts from the off. Their crisp early play would have resulted in an opening goal on 12 minutes had Fromlowitz not produced a sharp save to deny Dmitri Komarovski.

Curled free-kick
With Germany reduced to efforts from range, Jerome Boateng fizzing one such shot just wide, it came as something of a shock when Änis Ben-Hatira curled a cross from the right flank into the box and Wagner rose above Oleg Veretilo to break the deadlock with a fine header. Belarus drew level soon after, Kislyak curling a set-piece into the right corner of the net from outside the area, and had a great opportunity to win the game through Aleksandr Martynovich (72) in a second half in which Ben-Hatira failed to take advantage of Germany's clearest opening.