Sami Khedira has dismissed claims that Joachim Loew is losing the confidence of the Germany squad ahead of Wednesday s friendly with Argentina.
The 52-year-old s decision to field Toni Kroos as an auxiliary central midfielder in the 2-1 Euro 2012 semi-final loss to Italy was greeted with widespread criticism in his homeland.
But the Real Madrid midfielder insists the former Stuttgart boss has the trust of all of his players and believes that they should have beaten Cesare Prandelli s side.
We are 100 percent confident in him, Khedira said. We have no doubt because he is a competent coach.
A trainer proves his worth by making risky decisions and no-one can blame him for his starting line-up in the semi-final of the European Championship. We, the players, were the ones on the pitch.
We had many chances to score before the Italians got their goal and should also not have been 2-0 down. We didn t do what we did against Greece in the quarter-final against Italy.
Goalkeeper Tim Wiese added his support to Loew, despite being dropped for the clash against Argentina.
The 30-year-old has been a mainstay in the national fold over recent years, despite some heavily-criticised performances.
He went on to make the squad for Euro 2012, but has since been dropped by Loew, who has made it clear that he will favour Germany s next generation in future squads.
Despite that, Wiese has jumped to the coach s defence.
It was sad (that Germany were eliminated), because no-one had expected it. We actually had a great team, but against the Italians, we were too nice, the Hoffenheim keeper said.
I could not understand the fuss surrounding him. It s amazing how quickly you will be praised highly in Germany, before being knocked down again. It s incredible.
Wiese moved to Hoffenheim this summer after spending seven years at Werder Bremen, where he won the DFB-Pokal in 2009.
