Mexico 2 Germany 2: Serge Gnabry inspires off the bench as Arsenal winger strikes crucial goal

Game changer: Gnabry's emergence from the bench was crucial in Germany's comeback
Arisson Marinho/AP
James Benge5 August 2016

Arsenal winger Serge Gnabry made an impressive impact off the bench as Germany twice battled back from behind to secure a 2-2 draw with defending Olympic champions Mexico.

The 21-year-old has had few opportunities to impress Arsene Wenger in competitive action since suffering a knee injury in 2014, an abortive loan spell at West Brom seeing Gnabry play just 11 minutes of Premier League football.

German boss Horst Hrubech was soon forced to turn to Gnabry, initially named as a substitute, after captain Leon Goretzka departed the action midway through the first half with an injury. It was to prove to be a crucial change.

However it was to be Mexico who claimed the early advantage, Oribe Peralta taking advantage of poor marking to head home from a corner.

Gnabry had already blazed one left footed effort wide soon after Mexico’s opener but three minutes later he had his goal, bursting in behind the defence and bending a low effort beyond Alfredo Talavera

Rodolfo Pizarro tapped home the rebound from a deflected header to reassert the gold medallists advantage but with 12 minutes left Borussia Dortmund centre-back Matthias Ginter hammered home from a corner.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in