Jürgen Klopp’s Germany squad entered the international break needing two wins to advance to the knockout stage of the UEFA Nations League. Klopp collapsed the massive roster from his first international window into one playable unit and Germany dominated all night on the way to a 3-1 victory in Serbia. As the margins narrow, Klopp will continue to shrink the squad to maximize playing time for the best players.
“When you make decisions, you look at all 11 players and consider who’s covered how much ground and who you should take off,” said Klopp. “We had actually wanted to take Derry [Scherhant] off and bring Said El Mala on. But Gruda was having a bit of cramp or something like that, so I can’t just send Said back and tell him to sit down again. We were 3-1 up, and there were around 80 minutes on the clock. I know it’s not particularly nice when young players don’t start or don’t get brought on. But some players were decisive today, and tomorrow it will be others.”
In the second half, Klopp opted to only utilize one of four Bayern Munich players sitting on the bench. Tom Bischof got the nod to replace his teammate, Aleksandar Pavlović. Lennart Karl, Nathaniel Brown, and Jonas Urbig watched the final whistle from the sidelines.
Klopp singled out Lennart Karl as a “wonderful young man. He’s trained really, really well and is fully integrated into the team. He didn’t play today because the player who played in his position is also very good at football. But there will be many chances to come.”
