Playing away to Oman on Wednesday, the match was scoreless going into the 80t minute when Havertz slipped a pass between two defenders for Niklas Fulkrug, the Werder Bremen forward, to finish from 12 yards out.

Next stop for the Germans is their group opener against Japan next Wednesday. Their other group games are against Spain and Costa Rica.

While Havertz was in action for 90 minutes today, Mateo Kovacic played 45 minutes of a successful warm-up game for Croatia against Saudi Arabia.

The Croatians kept many of their most regular performers back until stages of the second half, including the Chelsea midfielder who was introduced at half-time.

It made a difference after a difficult first half for the 2018 World Cup finalists, with the winning goal in a 1-0 win scored in the 82nd minute by Hoffenheim’s Andrej Kramaric. Saudi Arabia had hit the post 10 minutes earlier.

Croatia begin their World Cup group campaign against Morocco, also next Wednesday, before games against Canada and Belgium.

In a friendly between two sides not going to the World Cup, Armando Broja came off after 50 minutes of what ended in as a defeat for Albania at home to Italy.

The striker was substituted with what appeared to be an ankle injury with the score 2-1 to the Italians after Albania had taken an early lead. Vincenzo Grifo later added his second goal to complete a 3-1 victory for the Azzurri, for whom Jorginho was not involved.