Hamburg  - Germany coach Joachim Loew admitted Wednesday his side were stale after snatching a late draw against Finland in their final World Cup qualifier on Wednesday.

"It was difficult to find the freshness after our match against Russia. The Finns were mentally fresher," Loew said.

Germany ended their World Cup campaign unbeaten at the top of Group 4 but again failed to overcome Finland following their 3-3 draw in Helsinki with the Finns just over a year ago.

"In the first half it was enormously difficult to get into the game," Loew said.

"We had problems in our build up play and ran into several counter-attacks. We tried to turn the game round in the second half and created some chances.

"The team showed a lot of morale because you could see they didn't want to lose."

Loew said his side missed the dynamism of the performance in beating Russia 1-0 in Moscow but deserved the point in the end thanks to a late Lukas Podolski goal which levelled an 11th-minute goal from Jonathan Johansson.

The coach said he was under no pressure to begin talks on extending his contract which expires at the end of next year's World Cup in South Africa.

"I need a bit of time to reflect and to recover mentally from the intensity of these last two games but I will sit down and talk to the federation when the time comes," he said. dpa