Thursday, August 26, 2021
BVB defense chief builds form
Flick does without Hummels on the debut
Mats Hummels will not be present at the debut of the new national coach Hansi Flick. But that has nothing to do with poor performance or the age of Borussia Dortmund’s head of defense. Meanwhile, there is good news from Flick for the badly criticized Leroy Sané.
The new national coach Hansi Flick will play his first international matches with the German national soccer team without veteran Mats Hummels. This was reported by the “kicker” one day before the official announcement of the first line-up by Flick on Friday tomorrow.
Borussia Dortmund’s defense chief was unable to properly prepare for the new season due to persistent patellar tendon problems, which had already affected the 32-year-old permanently during the European Championship. In this respect, renouncing Hummels seems logical. Hummels has only recently returned to full training at BVB and, according to “Kicker” information, “should continue his development program in Dortmund and only join the DFB team again in October”.
When rebuilding the national team towards the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Flick wants to continue to rely on the experience of former world champions such as Hummels and Bayern professional Thomas Müller. “The best players are invited. If they perform at their best, which I assume they can still do, they are part of this team,” said Flick last to the older players like Hummels. Flick’s predecessor Joachim Löw and attacker Müller had brought this back to the national team after more than two years at the EM.
Hummels’ Dortmund club colleague Marco Reus is also expected to return to the national team. Flick recently praised the BVB captain when he was introduced as national coach as one of the best players in the front line of attack. Leroy Sané should also be there – despite very mixed to poor performances at the European Championships and also at FC Bayern. According to the “Bild” newspaper, Flick telephoned the 25-year-old and submitted the invitation.
Flick wanted to announce the squad for the three World Cup qualifiers against Liechtenstein in St. Gallen (September 2nd), leaders Armenia in Stuttgart (September 5th) and Iceland in Reykjavik (September 8th) on Thursday. The German Football Association justified the postponement to Friday for organizational reasons. Flick gathers the squad in Stuttgart on Sunday evening. He will lead the first training session as national coach on Monday afternoon.
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