2024-08-20 06:59:37
İlkay Gündoğan has retired from the German national team. Is Manuel Neuer next? Exciting times lie ahead for the national coach.
Toni Kroos, Thomas Müller and now team captain İlkay Gündoğan. Three deserving national players who retired from the DFB team after the European Championships at home and within a few weeks. The German national team is suddenly facing a major upheaval that was not necessarily expected. And another domino on the way to a complete overhaul could soon fall: Manuel Neuer.
The 2014 World Champion has left his future in the national team open after the European Championship. According to DFB sports director Rudi Völler, Neuer will decide whether he will continue until the next squad nomination next week.
Neuer is now 38 years old and has been injured several times in recent years. He is no longer the undisputed number one that he always was. At least his performances are now being viewed differently and more critically than before. Also because Marc-André ter Stegen, a number two at the best goalkeeper age (32), is waiting to take over.
Even if Neuer is still highly motivated despite his advanced age and wants to achieve the maximum, he cannot stop time. The pressures are not getting any less – for Gündogan, this is also a reason to resign. There must not be a possible interim solution, as Neuer once considered (read more about this here).
In any case, national coach Julian Nagelsmann is now faced with a mammoth task. He has to completely reinvent the German national team. With Kroos and Gündogan, his two leaders have disappeared, as has his control center in midfield. With Müller, an important player has gone, who on and off the field – no matter how bad things were for the DFB team – had a feel for the bigger picture. An identification figure for the fans.
But the timing could be worse overall. Because Julian Nagelsmann has time. The World Cup in the USA, Mexico and Canada is not for another two years. But he wants to win it then, as he explained after the European Championship exit.
The role in the control center will probably be filled by Joshua Kimmich, who will move forward from the right side of defense like at Bayern and will also become the new DFB captain. Alongside him, Alexander Pavlovic, Robert Andrich and Pascal Groß are reliable partners in a possible double six. Gündogan’s role could be taken over by Florian Wirtz or Jamal Musiala.
Nagelsmann has enough options to fill the gaps that have arisen. But above all he has to find new leaders. Players who lead the way and who other players can look up to. That’s exactly what Kroos, Müller and Gündogan were, and Neuer is exactly that. That’s the only way Germany will win another title in the end. Julian Nagelsmann knows that too.