England manager Gareth Southgate has labelled Germany as one of the benchmarks in international football due to their continued presence in the latter stages of major tournaments.
The Three Lions head to Munich on Tuesday for their second Nations League game, having suffered a surprise 1-0 defeat to Hungary on Saturday in their first League A Group 3 game.
Meanwhile, Germany shared the spoils in a 1-1 draw with Italy as preparations for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar are stepped up.
England and Germany met only last June at Euro 2020, with Southgate's side 2-0 victors at the last-16 stage in front of a buoyant Wembley crowd.
Germany have failed to score in their past two matches against England, as many as in their previous 16 games combined.
But Southgate still views Hansi Flick's side as a force to be reckoned with looking forward to the clash at the Allianz Arena and further ahead to the World Cup in November.
"You can see elements of what he did with Bayern Munich, I think seven either current or had just left Bayern, a lot of have cohesion and experience working with him," Southgate said of Flick on Monday.
"You can see the counter-pressing and the general pressing of the forwards, we have to be prepared for that. With the ball, they have some talented players.
"We saw that in summer, I think in some respects the result in summer was overlooked, I'm not sure why. The quality of the team was still very high, World Cup winners everywhere, Champions League winners.
"Real experience of those big occasions. For me, I think Brazil and Germany are still the benchmarks for teams who have regularly won tournaments, regularly making finals, even when you look at the 5-1 here [in 2001], they ended up in the World Cup final.
"You have to respect what they are and where they are as a footballing country, we have to try and replicate that and instil that mentality.
"We have to keep getting to the latter stages of competitions and games like tomorrow are exactly what we need. I think it's a great measure for us, this will be a brilliant test of what we're about and where we're at.
"It won't define where we're at in six months' time, if we win tomorrow, it doesn't mean we are going to win the whole thing in five, six months.
"One of the challenges before was can we beat the bigger teams, we've beat Belgium, Germany and Spain, we're starting to do that so now it is can we continue to do that."
England have not come out on top in consecutive games against Germany since a seven-game winning run between 1935 and 1966, the last game of which was the World Cup final.
Southgate vowed to rotate once again after offering the likes of Jarrod Bowen and James Justin starts in Budapest.
"We are going to push. We want to perform well. We will manage their load. Everyone of them wants to play tomorrow night," he continued.
"There is huge motivation in the group. I don't think the long season was the cause of the result the other day. The heat was a huge factor.
"To talk about the season is a psychological thing. It is no different to going into the Euros or the World Cup.
"It varies slightly from game to game, you are always trying to win. You always pick a team strong enough to win a game of football. We are trying to manage players coming back.
"To play Saturday and Tuesday is very challenging. Always trying to learn things, there's the performance and result. We go trying to win and the learnings after it is how you develop and improve as a team.
"James [Justin] won't be ready for tomorrow but we are hopeful he will be back for the next game if not the one after. Marc [Guehi] should be ready for tomorrow. Fikayo [Tomori] we could probably put him in the squad but given it's a hamstring we will give him a bit longer."
Cooper sacked by Leicester after winless run
Leicester City have dismissed manager Steve Cooper after a run of four Premier League games without a win.
Cooper, who previously managed Leicester's rivals Nottingham Forest, only took charge of the Foxes for 15 games in all competitions.
He was appointed in June, after Enzo Maresca left to join Chelsea following Leicester's promotion back to the Premier League.
After going six league games without a win at the start of the season, Cooper appeared to have steadied the ship with victories over Bournemouth and Southampton.
However, a winless streak of four top-flight matches, in which Leicester lost to Forest, Manchester United and Chelsea, while drawing with Ipswich Town, has seen Cooper lose his position.
In a statement released on Sunday, Leicester confirmed Cooper's assistants Alan Tate and Steve Rands had also left the club, with Ben Dawson set to take charge until a replacement is appointed.
Former Brighton and Chelsea boss Graham Potter was reportedly in talks to join Leicester prior to Cooper's appointment in the summer.
The Foxes are 16th in the Premier League on 10 points after 12 games.
Southampton 2-3 Liverpool: Salah brace sends Reds eight points clear
Liverpool went eight points clear at the top of the Premier League as they came from behind to seal a thrilling 3-2 victory over Southampton at St Mary's.
Two second-half goals from Mohamed Salah turned Sunday's game on its head after Mateus Fernandes had given bottom club Southampton a surprise 2-1 lead.
Dominik Szoboszlai had given Liverpool a 30th-minute lead by curling home via the far post after Flynn Downes' dreadful clearance landed at his feet inside the area.
However, the outstanding Tyler Dibling was felled by Andrew Robertson for a Southampton penalty on the stroke of half-time. Adam Armstrong's spot-kick was repelled by Caoimhin Kelleher, but the striker kept his nerve to tuck home the equaliser.
Armstrong then turned provider when Fernandes swept home Southampton's second in the 56th minute, but their lead would not last.
Salah cushioned a searching Ryan Gravenberch pass beyond a stranded Alex McCarthy for 2-2 in the 65th minute, then saw his inswinging cross handled by Southampton substitute Yukinari Sugawara seven minutes from time.
The Egyptian scored what proved to be the winner from the resulting penalty, and he almost got a hat-trick when he crashed a shot off the base of the post in the 88th minute.
Southampton remain bottom of the table, five points adrift of 17th-placed Wolves. Liverpool, meanwhile, are sitting pretty ahead of next week’s meeting with Manchester City, who were routed 4-0 by Tottenham on Saturday.
Data Debrief: Salah helps Slot into history books
Despite a lacklustre defensive performance, Liverpool earned their 10th victory in 12 Premier League games this season (one draw, one defeat), thanks primarily to Salah's quality in attack.
Salah has become the first Liverpool player to score in five successive Premier League games since the Egyptian himself did so in seven straight matches in October 2021.
His penalty, meanwhile, was his 100th goal away from Anfield for the Reds across all competitions.
Slot has now joined former Chelsea bosses Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti as the fastest managers to reach 10 Premier League wins upon their arrival in the division.
Chelsea shake off fatigue against Man Utd to extend winning run
Chelsea had to overcome fatigue, and survive a late scare, to beat Manchester United 1-0 in the Women's Super League on Sunday.
Guru Reiten's 17th-minute penalty proved decisive at Kingsmeadow in a rearranged fixture that was postponed earlier in the campaign due to Chelsea's Champions League exploits.
United came close to ending Sonia Bompastor's remarkable winning run and keeping their unbeaten start going when Melvine Malard's effort clattered the crossbar, but Chelsea escaped unscathed to move five points clear of Manchester City at the top.
The Blues are just the second team in WSL history to win their first eight games of a season, after Arsenal in 2018-19.
And Bompastor was particularly pleased with how her team, who mustered 2.1 expected goals (xG) to United's 0.2, shrugged off the tiredness to get the job done.
"I think it was a tough game today, we were expecting that," Bompastor told the media, as reported by the Press Association.
"United do not concede a lot of goals so we knew they were coming with a good defensive organisation, and we had to have a really good game with the ball.
"Especially with the wind today, it was difficult for us to build and to play more, so I am just a bit disappointed at the fact we couldn't play more.
"Sometimes the most important thing is to get the three points, especially because we have been in a run playing five games in two weeks. I think the players are a little bit fatigued as well."
Chelsea have now won 11 consecutive WSL matches, which is their longest-ever winning run in the competition. The last team to have a longer winning run in the competition were Man City last season between November and April (14 in a row).
Maika Hamano and Sjoeke Nusken had early opportunities for the Blues, before Mayra Ramirez was brought down by United's Phallon Tullis-Joyce, who was unable to keep out Reiten's composed spot-kick.
Reiten has now netted six goals in her eight WSL appearances this term.
Johanna Rytting Kaneryd wasted a good chance to put Chelsea further in front, when she elected to shoot rather than pass and her effort was blocked by Maya Le Tissier.
That profligacy might have proved costly in stoppage time, but the woodwork came to Chelsea's rescue after Malard got a shot off following a neat bit of skill to evade Millie Bright.
"Chelsea are the best team in the country, they're the champions for a reason. We said we would give everything from the off and the players have given everything," said United boss Marc Skinner, who was without injured striker Elisabeth Terland.
"Both teams had to play the conditions, but the pride I feel for the team and their commitment to what we're doing, and know we can do, I'm proud of their performance. For us it was about being calculated and always opening up more in the second half, we changed shape in the last 15 minutes to really give an attacking threat.
"We opened up, Chelsea took a few more opportunities. You have to balance the game, you go toe-to-toe with Chelsea and they probably win against most teams."
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