Intro:

Ahead of their second Group G match against Ghana, Germany's Per Mertesacker and Roman Weidenfeller spoke at a news conference in Santa Cruz Cabralia on Thursday (19th June).

Script:

SOUNDBITE: (German) Per Mertesacker, Germany defender:

'I think African teams in general play very physically. And they also have an incredible strength in one-on-one situations, they want to be brilliant and they are always trying to be exceptional in every one-on-one situation. I think that is part of their mentality. And then, they are very dangerous. So we have to play it very very clever tactically. We should try and avoid those one-on-one fights.'

SOUNDBITE: (German) Per Mertesacker, Germany defender:

'I think that (the second game of the 2010 World Cup against Serbia) should definitely be a warning for us. I think even in the last two tournaments we won the first game clearly and then lost the second game. And that really should warn us and we should know what we are supposed to do. For Ghana it will be like a final. They know that and they will be running for 90 minutes and they will try and play their physical game. But we have to try and make them play our game.'