Miroslav Klose moved ever closer to Germany's all-time scoring record, held by German legend Gerd Muller, after scoring his 64th goal in an easy 4-2 quarterfinal victory over Greece in Gdansk.
Germany strolled past the Euro 2004 champions, in a game that saw Germany coach Joachim Low make four changes. Klose got his first start of the tournament, coming in for the in-form Mario Gomez, who has notched up three goals in the tournament already. Germany also had the luxury of resting 100-cap man Lukas Podolski and Thomas Muller.
"I was glad that I got that goal," said Klose, who was a substitute in all three of Germany's group games.
"I was really happy to be given the chance to start. Our bench is very, very strong which makes us stand out. Anyone can come in and play, which is great for us.
"We knew that we could impose our game on the Greeks and get a few chances to score. That was just how things worked out."
Low was happy that his "cheeky" gamble to rest his key players in a knockout match against Greece, paid off. "To be cheeky is a good thing. Today it was the time to bring in some fresh faces and different types of players who could do a job and I think it worked very well," said Low.
"I thought after three victories, with which I was satisfied, we needed to be unpredictable against Greece because they know us very well.
"I don't think there is any question we absolutely deserved to win this match.
"Greece scored two goals out of one chance and the only thing I can say is we didn't take chances at the start of the game.
"Right from the start we were very good, we had lots of chances.
"They had a strong defence but in the second half we didn't let them hassle us because of the goal we conceded. We put in a good performance and the whole way we played was fantastic."
Greece coach Fernando Santos admitted his side was second best. "I would like to congratulate Germany. They played well," Santos said.
"I would also like to congratulate my players not only for today's performance and effort in today's match but for all their efforts during this tournament.
"The German team were really good and they deserved their huge percentage of ball possession.
"We could have maintained possession more and could have taken more chances but we didn't have the space to breathe. And given Germany had the ball most of the time they could actually press us towards our goal. Despite our defensive efforts we conceded a goal.
Santos was proud of his team's second half display, where the Greeks equalised within ten minutes of the restart, but saw the game slip away soon after.
"At half-time we told them we had to correct some minor mistakes and try to take more initiative in attack. We told them if we could score once it would change the game completely.
"We managed to score and create chances but we conceded the second goal really soon afterwards and that clipped our wings. After that it was really difficult to get back to the game. No matter how good your defence is after a certain point you become tired.
"But if someone had told me we would score twice against Germany I would never have believed them."
