Ribbeck happy with lucky point

Matthaus and Ribbeck will want to forget this game

Germany coach Erich Ribbeck said he was happy with a share of the points after his side's Euro 2000 opener ended 1-1 with Romania on Monday.

"When you look at the whole game then the point was deserved," Ribbeck said.

"You can say that we played very badly and were lucky to get a draw but I think we showed in patches that we can play good football and make chances.

"It's true that not everything worked as we would have liked but despite that we came back from 1-0 in the opening game that's not too easy."

That first goal shocked us

Oliver Bierhoff

Romania made a perfect start to the game when Adrian Ilie made the most of some poor German defending to set up Viorel Moldovan for an easy tap in after only four minutes.

"That first goal shocked us," admitted German captain Oliver Bierhoff.

"In the second half we started breaking out much better."

Hagi vs Matthaus

Germany, in fact, got back into the game in the 29th minute when Mehmet Scholl scored with a great strike against the run of play.

In the most publicised of the game's sub-plots, Romania's 35-year-old play-maker Gheorgi Hagi certainly had the better of Germany's 39-year-old talisman Lothar Matthaus.

Hagi was behind much of Romania's best work, while Matthaus had a poor game in Germany's stretched defence.

"We played well and it was a great start to the tournament for us," said Hagi, draped in Matthaus' shirt after the game.