LONDON: Germany’s rebuilding appears to be on the right track.

Denis Undav scored twice and the four-time World Cup winners extended their unbeaten record in the Nations League to three matches after a convincing 2-1 win at Bosnia-Herzegovina on Friday.

Reduced to 10 men, the Netherlands managed a 1-1 draw in Hungary.

Following the retirements of Manuel Neuer and Toni Kroos, Germany started a new cycle and their clean and fluid display against a spirited Bosnia side bodes well for the future.

The Germans top their group after also thrashing Hungary 5-0 and drawing in the Netherlands 2-2.

In the absence of several stalwarts, the Germans played with confidence, developed complex attacking moves and gave the impression of enjoying themselves. They had plenty of chances to score more and had a couple of goals disallowed for offside.

“I knew that Bosnia and Herzegovina are good defensively but you have to keep in mind that we had many chances,” said Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann. “That’s why Bosnia and Herzegovina stayed in the game.”

The only downside was the defensive lapse when Hungary’s Edin Dzeko pulled one back 20 minutes from time.

The visitors took the lead in the 30th minute at the conclusion of a move that showcased Florian Wirtz’s cleverness. The unmarked midfielder collected a lofted pass in the box and, instead of trying his luck, cut an unexpected back pass to Undav, who calmly finished the move.

Undav, who marked his first start for Germany with a goal against the Netherlands, was clinical on Friday.

His Stuttgart clubmate Maximilian Mittelstadt was the provider six minutes later with an excellent cross, and Undav doubled Germany’s lead with a clean tap-in from close range.

Bosnia’s Ermedin Demirovic, another Stuttgart player, hit the woodwork in the 35th, but Dzeko scored in the 70th with a header from a corner, his 67th goal for the national team.

Hungary hold the Netherlands

The Dutch’s unbeaten run was almost stopped at Puskas Arena.

The Netherlands won all nine previous meetings with Hungary and enjoyed most of the possession in the first half. But it could not find an edge to get past the staunch Hungarian defense. Roland Sallai put the hosts in the driver’s seat in the 32nd with a close-range finish from Zsolt Nagy’s cross.

The Dutch looked set for a dreadful evening when defender Virgil van Dijk was sent off for a second yellow card but Denzel Dumfries earned a point for the visitors with a header from Cody Gakpo’s curled free kick in the 83rd.

“Even with 10 men, we tried to put pressure forward,” Netherlands coach Ronald Koeman said. “I did have the idea: we’re going to score. If you have a man less, you are relieved that you still (finish) 1-1.”

Germany opened a two-point lead over the Netherlands at the top of the A3 Group. Hungary were third ahead of Bosnia.

Ukraine down Georgia 1-0

Georgia’s unbeaten record was ended by Ukraine in Group B1.

Georgia, the surprise of this year’s European Championship, won their first two games and remained at the top of the group despite the loss. Mykhailo Mudryk scored the winner for Ukraine, earning the war-torn country its first points in the tournament.

The Czech Republic won against Albania 2-0.

Other results

Iceland erased a two-goal deficit to draw with Wales 2-2. Brennan Johnson scored in a seventh consecutive game for club and country as the Tottenham winger put Wales ahead with the opener. Turkiye defeated Montenegro 1-0 in the other Group B4 game. In League C, Estonia won against Azerbaijan 3-1 while Sweden drew at Slovakia 2-2.
 

WASHINGTON: Kamala Harris is making a major push for male voters, after an appeal by Barack Obama to Black men to drop sexist attitudes highlighted a key issue for the Democrat in next month’s US presidential election.
As polls show Donald Trump maintaining a lead among men, Harris and her campaign are appealing to them to shun the Republican’s macho “bullying” and back the vice president instead.
A New York Times/Siena survey of likely male voters earlier this week showed Republican former president Trump with a substantial lead over Harris, by 51 percent to 40 percent.
Harris rarely mentions her gender despite being America’s first female vice president, preferring to avoid making it a central issue in her campaign.
But now there are signs that she is being forced to address the issue anyway.
On Tuesday, Harris will appear at a town hall in Detroit with Charlamagne Tha God, a comedian and radio host whose show is popular with young, Black male voters.
She is also deploying running mate Tim Walz, a folksy Midwestern former football coach, in a bid to reach out to male voters with less than four weeks until election day on November 5.
Walz has appeared at football games and regularly talks about his love of hunting.

And their campaign this week launched “Hunters and Anglers for Harris-Walz” in a clear pitch to male voters.
The Harris campaign also said it would unleash “Big Dog Bill Clinton” to woo younger Black men in southern battleground states next week — despite his history of sex scandals.
But it was Obama’s comments to “the brothers” as he made his first appearance on the campaign trail for Harris on Thursday that made it clear that Democrats are concerned.

Republican former president Trump has long had a strong base among white men, but polls show he has recently garnered signficant support among Black men — and Hispanic men too.
A poll by the NAACP in September showed 63 percent of Black voters backed Harris over 13 percent for Trump — but while support for Harris among Black women was at 67 percent, it fell to 49 percent among Black men under 50.
While Trump has recently been stepping up his machismo-drenched pitch to young men on right-wing podcasts, Harris has also been reaching out.
Last week, she appeared on former “shock jock” turned pro-Harris radio host Howard Stern’s show where she talked about her love of Formula One.
“She should try to do better with men than she is currently doing,” Sarah Longwell, a conservative strategist and executive director of Republican Voters Against Trump, said in an interview with the Playbook Deep Dive podcast.

She pointed to figures in a recent Harvard-Harris poll showing that 18 to 29-year-old men backed Harris by 17 points while women did so 47 points for Harris, adding: “That’s a big gap.”
“It is the men. It is Hispanic men. It is Black men, which means it is part of this bigger cultural thing with men,” she said.
It’s not just Harris who is chasing voters of the opposite gender, however.
Next week, Trump will hold a town hall with women, despite his own history of sex scandals and as Democrats hammer him for his stance on abortion.

Obama blasts ‘crazy’ Trump
On Thursday, Obama lashed out at “crazy” Donald Trump and urged voters to back Harris as he brought his star power to the 2024 election campaign trail for the first time.
As he hit the stump in the must-win state of Pennsylvania, Obama also chided Black male voters for what he called hesitancy in supporting Democrat Harris because they “just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”
Obama trained his fire on Trump during a pumped-up rally in Pittsburgh, comparing the Republican’s long speeches to late Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro’s and calling the billionaire out of touch with ordinary people.

America’s first Black president admitted that “this election’s going to be tight” as many voters were still struggling with high prices.
But he told the crowd that “what I cannot understand is why anybody would think that Donald Trump will shake things up,” adding: “You think Donald Trump ever changed a diaper?’
The popular Democrat called Trump’s schemes to sell bibles as “crazy” and used the same word to describe the 78-year-old former president’s embrace of conspiracy theories.
As the crowd booed Trump, his successor in the White House, Obama added: “Don’t boo — vote.”
“Kamala is as prepared for the job as any nominee for president has ever been,” he added.

Vice president Harris’s campaign said Obama’s appearance, the first in a series in battleground states before the November 5 election, was designed to get people out to vote in crucial Pennsylvania.

Obama took aim at male voters who might be attracted by the Republican’s appeals toward machismo.
“I’m sorry gentlemen, I’ve noticed this, especially with some men who seem to think Trump’s behavior, the bullying and the putting people down, is a sign of strength,” he said.
“And I am here to tell you that is not what real strength is.”

Earlier, in a surprise stop before the rally at a campaign field office in Pittsburgh, Obama made an unusually direct appeal to Black men, whose support polls show Harris has struggled to mobilize.
Saying he had some “truths” that he wanted the Black community to hear, Obama said that “you’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I’ve got a problem with that.”
“Because part of it makes me think — and I’m speaking to men directly — part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”