The Germany coach Joachim Löw is confident his team have not peaked too soon before Euro 2012 after their 3-0 win over Holland in an international friendly on Tuesday crowned a superb year of nine victories and a single defeat.
Germany overwhelmed the 2010 World Cup runners-up in Hamburg with a quick-passing, attacking style that impressed at last year's tournament in South Africa.
"A lot can happen in the next half-year," Löw warned after watching his team beat Holland for the first time since 1996 to finish 2011 with nine wins and three draws against a lone 2-1 loss to Australia. "If we had to play the Euro tomorrow we'd be in excellent shape," Löw said after his team, ranked third by Fifa, crushed the world's second-ranked side in front of a sell-out crowd of 51,500.
"This good run we've had isn't uncanny for me at all," he said, referring to an 18-month streak that has included wins over England (4-1), Argentina (4-0), Brazil (3-2) and now Holland. "We've worked for years to get to this level and our goal was to improve a bit every year."
Germany also won all 10 of their Euro 2012 qualifiers to ease into the tournament being co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine. "The developments from 2010 have been very good," he added after the win that Germany's top-selling newspaper Bild called "the most beautiful victory of 2011". Löw said: "I'm very pleased with the consistency we've been able to build up."
Germany are now firmly focused on winning a first title since Euro 96 in England. "Two or three years ago we couldn't always win the big matches," Löw said. "But now we've achieved that. I'm very pleased that we're consistently able to come up with this high level of performance."
The Holland coach Bert van Marwijk said he was impressed with how quickly Germany shifted from converting a Dutch attack into a scoring chance at the other end. "They were so fast," he said. "They're playing super right now. I'd say Germany is a top favourite [for Euro 2012] along with Spain.
"They've got so much potential. They've got so many good players. Even if you look over at their bench, they have so many creative players sitting there."
Van Marwijk said his team might have had a better chance against Germany if their first-choice forwards Robin van Persie, Arjen Robben and Rafael van der Vaart had not been missing through injury.
He said Holland, along with England, Italy and Portugal were also contenders. "We're also among the favourites if we go there without a lot of injured players," he said.
