Flick’s looking for a tackle and a right fielder. He can experiment in friendlies

As the host nation, the German national team is guaranteed to participate in the European Championships. Hansi Flick can therefore experiment and look for solutions to the problem positions. For the upcoming national break, he has therefore not called up the biggest stars and promising youngsters and late debutants will get their chance. What can we read from the nomination?

The German national team is preparing for the EURO 2024 at home. As the host country, Hans Flick’s selection will not play a competitive match in front of its own fans until the kickoff of the championship. However, this handicap allows the holder of seven trophies with Bayern Munich to experiment and look for solutions to problem positions.

At last year’s World Cup, the Germans struggled at the back, constantly changing the composition of their defence, and clearly had no solution at right-back, where Joshua Kimmich eventually ended up, further weakening an under-dominated midfield.

These and other problems contributed to a third straight failed tournament. A major embarrassment for the Germans, and one they won’t want to deepen at home.

The search for a striker

Hansi Flick will want to solve the shooting woes of Qatar before the first game of the upcoming championship kicks off. That’s why he has supplemented the experienced Niclas Füllkrug not only with Tim Werner, but also with Mergim Berisha and Brentford’s visiting offensive all-rounder with the potential to grow into a top striker, Kevin Schade.

Both Schade and Berisha, an RB Salzburg offspring now playing for FC Augsburg on loan from Fenerbahce, can look forward to making their national team debuts. While Schade (21 years old) has defended his country’s colours for a long time at junior level, Berisha (24 years old) only received an invitation in the U21 category.

But Berisha managed to become European U21 champion, and both for Salzburg and in the colours of Augsburg this season, he showed that he is built for big games, scoring for both teams in their clashes with Bayern Munich. His autumn goal was even the game-winner as Augsburg took all three points against their vociferous neighbour.

Lukas Nmecha is again missing from the nomination as he continues to be troubled by injury. However, Serge Gnabry or Kai Havertz can also lead the attack. Both have received invitations to the reunion, which could prove to be a dress rehearsal for the spearhead striker position.

A solution for the right side of the defence

Another surprise name called up to the national team is Stuttgart right-back Josh Vagnoman. Stuttgart is not having a good season, and what’s more, Vagnoman is currently not even in his team’s starting lineup.

An ankle injury from the autumn is partly to blame. However, the health problems have nothing to do with the fact that coach Labbadia decided to sit Vagnoman at the beginning of February.

He is still a long-time youth international and a nomination to the senior national team is a natural progression at 22 years old. Especially when the right edge of defence is clearly the weak point of Hans Flick’s selection.

Matthias Ginter or Thilo Kehrer, or Joshua Kimmich can be an alternative at this position. However, it is not the preferred position for any of them.

So Flick completes the nomination with a player who has become a right back in recent years. At 27, Borussia Dortmund mainstay Marius Wolf could make his senior national team debut. Playing regularly and in good form.

Over the years, Wolf has been searching for his ideal position for a long time. He has tried both ends of the field in attack and midfield, even playing regularly at full-back and at times as a centre-half. However, the development of recent years has made him an offensive right-back. He has thus landed in a position that may allow him to represent his country at the European Championships at home.

Only three midfielders again

One of the perceived weaknesses of the German selection for the 2022 World Cup was the midfield nomination. However, no one questioned the quality of the Kimmich, Goretzka, Gündogan trio. There was discussion about the width in the team’s midfield, where despite the possibility of nominating 26 instead of the 23 national team players, Flick, playing with a 4-2-3-1 midfield system, relied on just three midfielders.

The situation was only compounded when Joshua Kimmich moved to the right edge of the defence, or even when Gündogan came in at number ten.

Flick chose the same amount of midfielders for the friendlies against Peru and Belgium. Only Gündogan was replaced by the in-form Emre Can. The shift of Kimmich to the defence is probably not imminent with the nomination of Wolf and Vagnoman, yet the nomination in the midfield looks underestimated again with eight defenders but ten offensive players.

Visibly neglected for a long time is Maximilian Arnold. A mainstay of Wolfsburg for over a decade, he is now the team captain and made his debut for the national team back in 2014 under Joachim Löw.

his 13 minutes against Poland remained his only national team record until Hansi Flick took over the reins. The latter invited Arnold to the qualifying matches before the World Cup, where he started from the bench against Liechtenstein and Armenia.

However, as of November 2021, he remains in disfavour, for the second national team coach in a row.

Sources: DFB, Transfermarkt