England suffer first loss at new Wembley

By Mike Collett

LONDON (Reuters) - Germany maintained their Wembley hoodoo over England on Wednesday, coming from behind to win 2-1 in an entertaining friendly.

The visitors became the first team to beat England in the new-look 750 million pounds stadium after first-half goals from Kevin Kuranyi and debutant Christian Pander cancelled out Frank Lampard's early opener.

Germany, who also won the last match played in the old stadium in October 2000, recorded their sixth victory over England since 1972 including the penalty shootout win at Wembley in Euro 96.

"It's always fantastic to win in England," said keeper Jens Lehmann.

"We were the last team to win here and now we're the first to win here. That's special."

Germany coach Joachim Loew was without most of his first choice team, captain Michael Ballack heading a long injury list that also contained Bastian Schweinsteiger, Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski.

England, also missing several players including Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney and Owen Hargreaves, opened the scoring after good work by teenage right-back Micah Richards after nine minutes.

GERMANY LEVEL