19 November 2008
VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Matthew Upson post-Germany
West Ham United defender Matthew Upson could not hide his delight after scoring his first goal for England.

Germany

1-2

England

Helmes 63

 

Upson 23, Terry 84

International Friendly
7.45pm (GMT), Wednesday 19 November 2008
Olympic Stadium, Berlin
Live on ITV1

West Ham United defender Matthew Upson could not hide his delight after scoring his first goal for England, and turning in a 'man-of-the-match' display in Berlin.

Having come into the side against Kazakhstan and Belarus last month with John Terry injured, this time Upson partnered the Chelsea skipper and the two defenders scored the goals that gave England victory.

Upson told TheFA.com: "It was a fantastic evening and it's just great to get off the mark with my first goal for England.

"Immediately after the goal I was just refocusing on getting back and defending. It was a great moment to savour, but the game goes on and I really wanted to get back and be solid again.

"Any win away from home is great, but especially in Germany. The history that is there means it's a fantastic result, we can savour it and move on into next year."

Upson was quick to praise the entire team for a display of assured and confident unity that delivered an impressive victory.

"The team has a discipline about it and we kept our shape extremely well, even when under pressure, even when going forward we then got back in.

"There were a lot of players' work rates that was just fantastic. Both wide players, the two central midfielders worked their socks off and I think it showed."

Upson admits that confidence is key, and believes that preparation and organisation from the Manager and coaches is always going to lead to a confident group of players out on the pitch.

"I think the harder you train, the more you prepare and the more organised you are; mentally you are going to be more confident.

"We came out tonight and there were a few new faces, but we put the same mentality on the pitch and we got the result which was fantastic.

"We have to keep our feet on the ground and there are a lot of things we can improve on as a group. I'm sure the game will get analysed and we'll work on what we did poorly and congratulate what was done well and move on. There's a lot more to come from the whole squad."

Teams

England
1 David James (12 Scott Carson, 46), 2 Glen Johnson, 3 Wayne Bridge, 4 Gareth Barry, 5 Matthew Upson, 6 John Terry (C) 7 Shaun Wright-Phillips (20 Peter Crouch, 90) 8 Michael Carrick, 9 Jermain Defoe (Darren Bent, 46), 10 Stewart Downing, 11 Gabriel Agbonlahor (19 Ashley Young, 77)

Substitutes
13 Joleon Lescott, 14 Micah Richards, 15 Michael Mancienne, 16 Curtis Davies, 17 Scott Parker, 18 Jimmy Bullard, 22 Paul Robinson

Manager
Fabio Capello

Germany
1 Rene Adler (12 Tim Wiese, 46), 3 Arne Friedrich (4 Serdar Tasci, 68), 5 Heiko Westermann, 6 Simon Rolfes, 7 Bastian Schweinsteiger, 8 Jermaine Jones (13 Marko Marin, 46), 11 Miroslav Klose (c) (Patrick Helmes, 46) 14 Piotr Trochowski, 16 Marvin Compper (19 Marcel Schafer, 78), 17 Per Mertesacker, 18 Mario Gomez (10 Lukas Podolski, 57) 

Substitutes
2 Andreas Hinkel, 15 Thomas Hitzlsperger, 20 Tobias Weis

Manager
Joachim Low