Kuranyi will never play for me again, says Löw

Joachim Low, the Germany coach, has revealed that the striker Kevin Kuranyi will not play for the national team again as long as he is in charge. The Schalke player walked out on the squad on Saturday during the interval of their 2-1 World Cup qualifying win over Russia having failed to make the 18-man party for the game.

Attempts to contact him after the match proved fruitless as Kuranyi failed to turn up for the coach back to the team hotel. Reports in Germany yesterday suggested Kuranyi was set to announce his international retirement after the disappointment of being left out.

But Löw has now made that decision for him, ruling the 26-year-old out of all future international matches. "It would not be right to the team and to the coaches to pick him again."

Bayer Leverkusen forward Patrick Helmes took one of the seven places on the bench against Russia and Löw has ruled out calling up any extra cover in attack for Wednesday's against with Wales in Mönchengladbach.

"We have enough players in the squad who are healthy and we will concentrate on the Wales game with Helmes, Lukas Podolski, Mario Gomez and Miroslav Klose," Löw said.

Germany retained top spot in Group Four after goals from Lukas Podolski and Michael Ballack. Germany came under pressure when Russia's Andrei Arshavin stabbed Alexander Anyukov's cross into an empty net in the 51st minute after a mistake by Philipp Lahm.

n Elsewhere in the group, Finland beat Azerbaijan 1-0 in Helsinki with a goal from the former Chelsea and Birmingham City striker Mikael Forssell.

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