Schweinsteiger eyes revenge

12 April 2012

Bastian Schweinsteiger set his sights on gaining revenge over Croatia after guiding Germany into the Euro 2008 quarter-finals with a man-of-the-match display against Portugal.

The Bayern Munich star, returning to the fold after being sent off in the Group B defeat against Croatia resulting in his suspension for the final pool game against Austria, opened the scoring and then set up further goals for Miroslav Klose and Michael Ballack as the Germans ran out 3-2 winners at Basle's St Jakob-Park.

"Yes, of course, we'd like to have Croatia," Schweinsteiger said of his preferred semi-final foes.

Nuno Gomes pulled one back for Portugal five minutes before half-time to make it 2-1 and substitute Helder Postiga gave Luiz Felipe Scolari's side a glimmer of hope three minutes from the end but the Euro 2004 finalists could not force an equaliser.

Joachim Low's team will return to Basle for Wednesday's first semi-final against either Croatia or Turkey, who contest the second last-eight tie on Friday.

And Schweinsteiger is hoping Germany get the chance to make amends for their 2-1 defeat to Slaven Bilic's side in the pool phase.

The 23-year-old believes Germany have already seen off "probably the best team" in the competition thanks to their collective spirit but played down his own heroics.

"Yes, I scored and set up another, but it's a team achievement," he said.

"It's the German virtues that have served us very well. We played probably the best team at the tournament and we won - that goes to show what team spirit we have."

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