Gareth Southgate: Germany and Brazil still the benchmark in tournament football

Gareth Southgate insists Germany remain a benchmark in world football as he prepares his England side for their Nations League meeting in Munich.

The Three Lions will be upbeat about the chances of recording victory in just their third ever competitive fixture away to Germany, having got the better of their old foes with a 2-0 last-16 win at Euro 2020 last summer.

Germany have appointed a new boss since then in the shape of former Bayern Munich coach Hansi Flick – who had previously worked as a coach under previous national team manager Joachim Low.

They are unbeaten in Flick’s first 10 games at the helm and Southgate believes they continue to be one of the top national teams in the world.

“For me, Germany and Brazil are still the benchmark in terms of countries that have regularly and consistently won tournaments,” he said on the eve of the meeting at the Allianz Arena.

“In some respects the result in the summer was overlooked, I’m not sure why – the quality of the (Germany) team was still very high, World Cup winners everywhere, Champions League winners everywhere, so really experienced at those big occasions.

Southgate continued: “Even when everyone talks about the 5-1 here (in 2001), they ended up in the World Cup final on the back of that qualifying campaign.

“So, you have to respect what they’ve been as a country and what they are as a country in footballing terms.

“That mentality is what we’re trying to create – we’ve got to keep trying to get to latter stages of competitions. Games like (Tuesday) are brilliant for us – that’s exactly the kind of test we need.”

Asked about how he judged Flick’s influence on Die Mannschaft, Southgate said: “You can see elements of what he did at Bayern Munich.

“Seven of the team