National team Tah as a cake for Grandma Lotti: Why the DFB announces the European Championship squad piecemeal
His name was on a cake for Grandma Lotti: Leverkusen’s Jonathan Tah (r.) after the game against the Netherlands with his colleague Robert Andrich
© Christian Charisius / DPA
First Nico Schlotterbeck, now Jonathan Tah: The DFB is breaking new ground when announcing the European Championship squad. Individual names will be launched through various channels until the official presentation on Thursday. Does it have to be that way?
Nico Schlotterbeck started, followed by Jonathan Tah: The two central defenders are the first professionals that national coach Julian Nagelsmann has nominated for the European Championships. The reason why only two names have been announced is that the DFB chose an unusual way to present the squad this time. The name of BVB professional Schlotterbeck was announced to viewers in the “Tagesschau” on Sunday evening, where a DFB source was cited. For Jonathan Tah, the association’s media department chose a completely different path. This time it was Hamburg geriatric nurse Rashid Hamid, known for his social media presence, who posted a video clip on his Instagram channel on Monday morning. In it you can see Hamid handing over a DFB jersey with the number 93 (her age) and a cake with Tah’s picture on it to Grandma Lotti, who is also already known.
The bit-by-bit announcement via various channels is the latest variant with which the DFB presents the national team squad before a major tournament. Older people remember that there used to be pompous mountaineering shows on the Zugspitze (Euro 2008) or players as life-sized cardboard mates, like before the summer fairytale World Cup in 2006. Most recently, the association had actually reduced the presentation before major tournaments to ordinary and unadorned press conferences , certainly also because quite a few people were bothered by the over-staging of that Bierhoff era, which rarely found its counterpart on the pitch.
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DFB squad for the 2024 European Championship: announcement piecemeal via social media
So now the piecemeal announcement via social media and other channels. Yes, of course that is above all contemporary. And this may also be due to the fact that names have regularly been leaked to the public in advance in recent years. Most recently, in March, before the international matches against France and the Netherlands, the names of debutants Maximilian Mittelstädt, Deniz Undav, Waldemar Anton, Maximilian Beier, Aleksandar Pavlovic and Jan-Niklas Beste were spread. At the same time, the exclusion of some Dortmund players sparked unrest.
Now the DFB is clearly trying to get ahead of the national guesswork by releasing individual names before the “official” presentation in Berlin scheduled for Thursday. How many players will be named by then? Is open. “Bild” speculated that up to four names could be mentioned every day. If you want to keep an overview, you should keep an eye on the DFB’s Instagram account. The nominations can be seen there under the squad section with a gold cup as a symbol.
Mats Hummels will probably not be nominated
The nomination of Schlotterbeck is one of the more exciting personalities. The central defender has not been considered by Nagelsmann in the past eight months, but has played his way back into the spotlight with consistently good performances. The 24-year-old is in the Champions League final with BVB. Nagelsmann is likely to include him as a supplementary player in the national team, Antonio Rüdiger from Real Madrid (who Schlotterbeck will face in the said final) and Jonathan Tah are considered seeded. It is now highly doubtful whether Schlotterbeck’s appointment will increase Mats Hummels’ chances. All signs point to Nagelsmann sticking to his strict course and not intending to bring back the 2014 world champion or Bayern Munich’s Leon Goretzka for the European Championships.
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