Germany beat Russia 3-0 in soccer friendly

First half goals from Leroy Sane, Niklas Suele and Serge Gnabry gifted Germany a 3-0 win over Russia in Leipzig at an international soccer friendly on Thursday.

Germany head coach Joachim Loew made a lot of changes in his team and gave a number of youngsters the chance to leave their mark.

Nevertheless, the hosts grabbed the reins from the kickoff and pressed Russia into the defence. It took only seven minutes before Germany opened the scoring as Serge Gnabry's square pass allowed Leroy Sane to tap home from inside the box.

As the match progressed, Russia gained a foothold but failed to get an effort on target.

Germany continued offensively minded and had the chance to double the lead in the 22nd minute but Leory Sane's header on target posed no threat to Russia's goalkeeper Andrey Lunev.

Niklas Suele cut a better figure in front of the goal three minutes later, as he slotted home a corner kick from close range into the bottom right corner to make it 2-0 on the scoreboards.

Russia were unable to put up resistance meanwhile Germany were not done with the scoring as Kai Havertz' through ball found Serge Gnabry, who tripled the lead before the break to put the result beyond doubt.

After the restart, the visitors should have reduced the arrears but Aleksey Ionov pulled wide from 12 meters with just Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer to beat.

Chances remained a rare occurrence throughout the second half as several substitutions disrupted the flow of the game.

"We played a very good first half. We were dynamic and let the ball do the work. However, we lost our flow in the second half due to the substitutions," Loew said.

Germany will face the Netherlands in the UEFA Nations League on Monday.