Oliver Baumann: Why Nagelsmann relies on him in the DFB goal

Anyone who plays their first international match for the national soccer team will be presented. After the debut, there is a medal from the German Football Association to remember the special day. When Oliver Baumann was first invited to the national team in 2020, a badge was also prepared for the goalkeeper. However, she stayed in a suitcase for a long time. For over four years, DFB employees kept carrying him to the games without being able to hand over the medal without Baumann. The goalkeeper was not used. Baumann was number three in the German goal, the replacement of the replacement, an eternal reservist.

Probably the badge would still be in the suitcase today, the German goalkeeper hierarchy after the European Championship would not have been completely mixed up. Manuel Neuer, 15 years of the goalkeeper, ended his national team career after the European Championship. Then the heir to the throne was seriously injured Marc-André Ter Stegen.

Two goalkeepers from world -class format – suddenly gone. Oliver Baumann, 34, under contract with TSG Hoffenheim for a decade, but is still there.

After his international debut last autumn last year, Baumann is now number one in the two games against Italy in the quarter -finals of the Nations League. National coach Julian Nagelsmann gives him the preference in front of Alexander Nübel, 28, from VfB Stuttgart. It was “a millimeter decision”, said Nagelsmann on Wednesday evening at the press conference before the first leg in Milan (Thursday, 8:45 p.m.). He sees “the tick more consistency over a longer period of time” at Baumann.

Nagelsmann currently has to improvise in the goalkeeper position like only a few national coaches before him. He relies on experience. Baumann radiates the calm of a goalkeeper who can look back on around 500 professional games. Nagelsmann has known Baumann for a long time, and at the beginning of his career he trained him in Hoffenheim. He knows what he can expect from him. That Baumann’s game hardly knows fluctuations. The fact that mistakes like that on the past Bundesliga weekend when his wrong pass led him to a goal in the opening of the player rarely undermined. That you shouldn’t expect a miracle thing from him.

Baumann has been a reliable backing of a mid -range club in the Bundesliga for years, but he hardly has international experience. The national coach should see an interim solution in him. His guarantee of use initially applies to the two games against Italy. Nagelsmann’s decision is one for the moment, none for the future. A new new one will no longer become Baumann. He should not shape the era, but should fill an acute vacuum.

It seemed long unthinkable that the number one is just before a not unimportant international game is who the number one is because the national coach has several good but no outstanding goalkeeper and shakes the certainty of football nation. You might be able to worry about a missing center forward, for mediocre full -backs or for a while even for a rumpel game approach. But no matter how bad about the DFB team in the past decades, an exceptionally good goalkeeper usually woke up in the back. Often there were not only one, but at least two. The replenishment of top gatekeepers seemed a matter of course, and so the nation argued about who belonged between the posts. Small wars relax around the place in the German gate, which were fished bitterly.

Hans Tilkowski against Wolfgang Fahrian in the 1960s. Toni Schumacher against Uli Stein in the 80s. Bodo Illgner against Andreas Köpke in the 90s. Oliver Kahn against Jens Lehmann in the zero years. Marc-André Ter Stegen, 32, lasted fate for years with a version of being number two in his country as a glass goalkeeper.

Now that Manuel Neuer has ended his DFB career, Ter Stegen’s time should actually come. But since autumn he has been laboratories on a tear of the patella tendon. When he returns to the square seems open. Likewise, the question of how quickly and whether he will find it back to the old form at all.

Against Italy there is now a man in the German goal with Baumann who does not play in the Champions League and does not earn his money from Bayern or Barcelona, ​​but at Hoffenheim. And of course some mean to recognize an expression of a new problem in German football. Germany, goalkeeper country, that was once?

“I think we have something like a small goalkeeper problem in Germany,” said record national player and television expert Lothar Matthäus. “Newly no longer there, hurt ter Stegen – and the others have not yet shown the achievements of how one would wish for it.” The boulevard has long been speculating about a return from new to the DFB goal, in the event that Ter Stegen should not be fit and in shape until the World Cup next year. The new would be 40 years old at the World Cup. The fact that a possible return is now being discussed not only says something about the media longing for a over goalkeeper, but also about the lack of top German talents in the position.

In the Bundesliga, many clubs have preferred to rely on an experienced goalkeeper from abroad for several years. Young goalkeepers rarely get the chance to play regularly. Among the current German stammering goalkeepers in the Bundesliga, there is only one under 26, Noah Atubolu from SC Freiburg. Despite shaky appearances, the club held on to him in his first season and was rewarded. Most recently, Atubolu remained without a goal in six games in a row. Many now see a future candidate for the German goal in the 22-year-old.

At the press conference in Milan on Wednesday evening, Nagelsmann also called on the Bundesliga coaches to deal with German goalkeeper talents. He would like that young goalkeepers make mistakes more often and grow on them without being sawn out or being scolded by the media.

What this can lead to if a goalkeeper talent is familiar with early, has been observed at the German Nations League opponent for years. Gianluigi Donnarumma played his first professional game at 16, a year later he already played for the Italian national team. It was also held on him in changeable phases. Today Donnarumma, 26 years old, is one of the best in his field.