Germany’s presence in the quarter-finals of Euro 2012 is as deserved as it was to be expected. Here in steamy Lviv, though, Joachim Low’s team showed their first signs of vulnerability as they survived some nervous moments to overcome a Danish team that hasn’t managed to build on an opening win over Holland and will now head home. A meeting with Greece in Gdansk now awaits this powerful, gifted German team. We can expect to see them in yet another semi-final next week. However, after a superb start that brought Lukas Podolski a goal the Germans struggled to maintain their impressive momentum and some dreadful defending from a corner allowed Denmark to equalise against the run of play midway through the first half. As expected, Germany dominated and the much-acclaimed front three of Podolski, Mario Gomez and Thomas Muller were terrific. At the other end, though, they may have just looked uncertain enough on occasion to give the likes of Spain, Italy and even England some encouragement ahead of the knock-out stages. Indeed, with the game locked at 1-1 with 10 minutes to go a second Danish goal would, incredibly, have sent Germany out. As it was, moments after Denmark were denied what may have been a penalty for a foul on Nicklas Bendtner by Holger Badstuber, Germany broke late for young right back Lars Bender to win the game. Coach Joachim Low said: ‘We were ahead and had two or three chances but we lacked the killer instinct. We conceded a poor goal, after that it could have gone wrong. We could have got knocked out.’
