Germany crash to Austria on Neuer's comeback

Manuel Neuer looks set to go to the World Cup, but Germany's goalkeeper was unable to prevent his team crashing 2-1 to Austria on his comeback.

Neuer has proven his fitness after eight months sidelined by a fractured foot in timely fashion, with four names to be cut ahead of Germany naming their final 23-man World Cup squad on Monday.

But the 'keeper was powerless to stop second-half goals by Martin Hinteregger and Alessandro Schoepf after Mesut Ozil gave the Germans an early lead.

The result is a big concern for Germany head coach Joachim Loew with the World Cup to kick off in less than a fortnight.

The world champions are now winless in their last five games since suffering back-to-back defeats after losing 1-0 to Brazil in Berlin last March.

"It was a good comeback from Manuel after so long out," Loew told broadcaster ZDF.

"The defeat is annoying, we did well in the first half, but we lost a lot of ball in the second half and made life hard for ourselves.

"A lot of things were bad today."
- Austrian fight-back -
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