He did not name a squad. He named two.
Forty-four players. That is what Jurgen Klopp’s first team selection as Germany manager looks like, and it arrived Thursday morning.
The structure is unusual. A group of 24 handles the Netherlands on 24 September and Greece on 27 September. A separate group of 21 takes on Serbia on 1 October and Greece again on 4 October. The two overlap on 27 September, so there is a handover rather than a clean break.
Sixteen of the 44 were at the last World Cup. Sixteen others have never been capped, and 11 of those have never even been called up. Klopp is buying himself a long look before he starts cutting.
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Eleven uncapped names, and ter Stegen back after 15 months
Said El Mala of Cologne is in. So are Noah Atubolu and Younes Ebnoutalib from Eintracht Frankfurt, and Mika Baur from Celtic. Freiburg alone supply four: Max Rosenfelder, Philipp Treu, Yannik Engelhardt and Derry Scherhant.
Joshua Kimmich keeps the armband. Marc-Andre ter Stegen is back after 15 months away. Finn Dahmen is the only player named on both lists, which tells you something about the goalkeeping picture.
The omissions are louder. Deniz Undav and Leroy Sane are out. Oliver Baumann is out. Leon Goretzka is injured and Angelo Stiller is ill, so those two come with an asterisk.
Two years out of the dugout, walking into this
Klopp has not coached anyone since he left Liverpool. He spent the gap as head of global soccer at Red Bull and on Magenta Sport’s World Cup coverage next to Thomas Muller.
He inherits a mess. Germany beat Ivory Coast 2-1 and Curacao 7-1, lost 2-1 to Ecuador, then went out in the last 16 on penalties to Paraguay after a 1-1 draw. Julian Nagelsmann did not survive the flight home.
The rebuild was coming regardless, with Antonio Rudiger and Manuel Neuer both retired from international football. Klopp used his first press conference to say he would walk if the criticism got heavy enough. The Netherlands on 24 September is where people start counting.
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