Julian Nagelsmann has named 27 players including tournament veterans Toni Kroos and Thomas Müller to the provisional squad for the European Football Championship. As expected, long-standing national players such as Dortmund’s Mats Hummels and Munich’s Leon Goretzka as well as the currently injured Bayern attacker Serge Gnabry are missing from the DFB squad that the 36-year-old named this Thursday in the final venue of Berlin.
“It’s not nice to tell a player that he won’t be at a home European Championship. Of course, such conversations are emotional,” said Nagelsmann about the rejections of Hummels or Goretzka, for example. Hummels and Goretzka also “threw everything into being there”. But a “decisive point” for him as a coach was “that every player has his character, his traits”. Ultimately, his job is to “put the right ones together.”
Nagelsmann wants four goalkeepers in the squad
With the squad for the home tournament, Nagelsmann is continuing the directional decisions he made before the successful international matches in March against France (2:0) and the Netherlands (2:1). “We made bold decisions in March that have started to take effect. A structure has grown,” explained Nagelsmann. The only new players are Munich’s Leroy Sané, who was suspended at the time, Dortmund’s Nico Schlotterbeck and Stuttgart goalkeeper Alexander Nübel.
The final European Championship squad, which must be reported to the European Football Union UEFA by June 7th (midnight), may contain a maximum of 26 players. So Nagelsmann still has to delete at least one actor. This will be an outfield player because Nagelsmann wants to have four goalkeepers in the squad for reasons of training and load management. Host Germany opens the European Championship finals against Scotland on June 14th in Munich. The final will take place on July 14th in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. “I already have the idea that we can win this thing,” said Nagelsmann about the maximum goal.
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In a multimedia announcement by the DFB, 18 European Championship participants had already been announced since Sunday, including captain Ilkay Gündogan, regular goalkeeper Manuel Neuer and tournament newcomers such as Florian Wirtz from champions Bayer Leverkusen and Aleksandar Pavlovic from FC Bayern. Nine more players were added in Berlin. In addition to Kroos, Müller and Nübel, these are the goalkeepers Marc-André ter Stegen and Baumann as well as the outfield players Jamal Musiala, Waldemar Anton, Benjamin Henrichs and also Hoffenheim’s attacker Maximilian Beier. Only twelve players from the 26-person squad for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar are back.
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Sports director Rudi Völler reported in Berlin that “of course there were also cases of hardship”. From the Champions League finalists Borussia Dortmund, only striker Niclas Füllkrug and defender Nico Schlotterbeck are there, but alongside veteran Hummels there is also no Julian Brandt. FC Bayern has six players, followed by VfB Stuttgart with five players. Three of the champions Bayer Leverkusen are represented: Florian Wirtz, Jonathan Tah and Robert Andrich. Six players around captain Gündogan play for clubs abroad.
Nagelsmann gathers the DFB squad in Blankenhain on May 26th. However, the Champions League finalists Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund will miss the first part of the European Championship preparations in Thuringia. On June 3rd, the national team will play a friendly against Ukraine in Nuremberg. The European Championship dress rehearsal follows four days later in Mönchengladbach against Greece. In addition to Scotland, the DFB team’s other group opponents are Hungary on June 19th in Stuttgart and Switzerland on June 23rd in Frankfurt.
As was also announced this Thursday, in addition to national coach Nagelsmann, the rest of the national team’s coaching team has also extended their contracts up to and including the 2026 World Cup. The assistants Sandro Wagner and Benjamin Glück will remain with their boss Nagelsmann, as will goalkeeping coach Andreas Kronenberg and set-piece specialist Mads Buttgereit.
“I am extremely pleased that my team has extended. That was a basic requirement for me to continue,” said Nagelsmann on the sidelines of the presentation of his provisional European Championship squad. “Everyone was very quickly enthusiastic about continuing on the path like I was.” It is well known that “as a boss you are only as good as the team around you,” explained Nagelsmann. This is also “a good signal” for the team. All employees did a “very good job. We harmonize well on a human level, as well as in terms of content and have a blind understanding.”
