By Okay, serious question. Is this a prank? Is some cruel joke being played on the minds of Germany supporters?
After promising that he wouldn’t tinker his way into a hole like he did at Bayern Munich, Julian Nagelsmann is promising more experiments in the upcoming game versus Austria. Fans can only imagine what’s in store, but given that Kai Havertz now seems to be Germany’s starting left-back … anything is possible.
Team news
Before you continue, you should really listen to this. It’s our podcast on what went wrong for Germany vs Turkey and it talks about the whole fiasco in great detail. Go ahead and listen (via the player below or on Spotify) because it adds some much needed detail to what will be discussed now.
Julian Nagelsmann is doing that thing again, he says he’s going to tinker. At this point it’s pointless to predict a lineup so here are some possibilities:
- Option 1: A basic 4-2-3-1 with Niclas Füllkrug up top, supported by Leroy Sané, Florian Wirtz, and Serge Gnabry. Gündoğan and Groß in midfield. No surprises and no pizzaz. This is the least likely setup.
- Option 2: Some version of the lineup we saw against Turkey, with a few tweaks here and there. Gündoğan and Kimmich in midfield, Kai Havertz at left-back with some minor changes mainly in the attack, such as Julian Brandt being dropped for Serge Gnabry.
- Option 3: A radically new setup like a 4-2-2-2 formation or a traditional back three. The Austrians, after all, are hosting a friendly. Why not take advantage of that and go all-out with experimentation?
In his presser, Nagelsmann said that Austria were a better team than Turkey and that Germany needed to improve radically to match them. Given the short time between the Turkey game and this one, he will have to bring out some of his Hoffenheim magic to get the Germans out of this one.
