Positive thinking proves Germany's Weiser right

Facing elimination having seen two penalties go begging, Germany should be relieved they salvaged their UEFA European Under-17 Championship campaign with a last-minute equaliser against the Czech Republic – but defender Mitchell Weiser rued their failure take all three points.

Steffen Freund's side lost 2-0 to the Netherlands in their Group B opener in Smederevo and when they fell behind to the Czech Republic there on Friday the 2009 champions were in danger of an early exit. It looked even bleaker when first Emre Can, and then Samed Yesil, had spot kicks saved, but the latter, back from suspension that ruled him out on Tuesday, made amends with a timely equaliser.

Germany are still a point behind the second-placed Czechs with one game to go, however, and Weiser told UEFA.com: "I am a little bit disappointed, because we had the chance to win this match. We had enough chances to score and we missed two penalties as well.

"But if you score and equalise in the last minute of the match you are also happy about getting at least a draw. Now we still have the chance to get through the group stage and to qualify for the [FIFA U-17] World Cup."

To guarantee at least a trip to Mexico, they need to beat Romania on Monday. Victory would indeed take them into the semi-finals here as long as the Czech Republic do not defeat the Netherlands, confirmed section winners. The belief shown against the Czechs is a comfort to 1. FC Köln player Weiser.

"It was important that we believed in ourselves for the whole match," he said. "I was convinced we would score in this match and we finally did. We will keep this mentality for the rest of the tournament.

"We will focus totally on our match against Romania and hopefully can win. After this match we will see if we are in the semi-finals or not. So far we are have been a bit unlucky in this tournament. We are not playing badly but we do not score. We will give our all again next time."