Bad news came out of the Germany national team’s training camp on Thursday morning, with captain Joshua Kimmich being declared unfit to play in the upcoming game against Luxembourg. It still remains to be seen whether Kimmich will recover in time for Monday’s game against Slovakia.
With the captain sidelined, the question of who will take the armband in his place naturally arises. Bild put forth a surprising possibility — returnee Leroy Sané.
Bild’s reasoning is that Sané is the most capped national player in the current squad, minus the injured Kimmich. With regular vice-captains Kai Havertz and Antonio Rüdiger also injured long-term, the logical (?) choice for interim captain is the most experienced player on the squad. This has been an unspoken tradition in the Germany national team. Sané currently has 70 caps.
However, it would be quite the surprise if coach Julian Nagelsmann actually does give Sané the armband, especially considering Sané was not even called up to the national team for the past two months. What’s more, Nagelsmann directly stated Sané was more or less only called up due to his unique (?) profile, not his numbers at his new club Galatasaray.
Alternative candidates for the armband include surefire starters Jonathan Tah, David Raum, and Oliver Baumann. Among these options, Raum and Baumann are currently captains of their clubs (RB Leipzig and TSG Hoffenheim, respectively).
The German national team is back in action and has two very winnable games during this international break. With Luxembourg and Slovakia on deck, the Germans should be well-poised to pick up two victories.
Against Luxembourg, Germany head coach Julian Nagelsmann should be able to play with his lineup a bit, but against Slovakia, Nagelsmann will have to be on-point. Last time around, Slovakia stunned the Germans 2-0 and Nagelsmann will want to avoid a repeat of that flat performance.
This is what we have on tap for this episode:
