U21 European Championship: High squad quality equals high expectations

The German U21 national team is in high spirits as they head off to the European Championships in Slovakia on Sunday. The training camp in Blankenhain – where the senior team prepared for the European Championships a year ago – under top conditions has further boosted their already high optimism.

However, Finn Jeltsch of VfB Stuttgart will not be traveling to the European Championship. The defender had to leave the training camp early due to inflammation of his lower leg. Two other squad spots had to be removed overnight from Wednesday to Thursday. These included goalkeeper Johannes Schenk (Preußen Münster) and striker Derry Scherhant, who is transferring from Hertha BSC to SC Freiburg this summer.

Players and coach Antonio Di Salvo would be bitterly disappointed if they were eliminated in the group stage again, as they were in 2023. They are more likely to look back on 2017, 2019, and 2021, when the German team reached the final three times in a row under Di Salvo's predecessor, Stefan Kuntz, and won twice.

Woltemade is urgently needed

"We want to get to the final and deliver," says Jamil Siebert, the Fortuna Düsseldorf central defender, who has a reported five million euro release clause and is being courted from England and Italy. There are a few more German players who could put themselves on the map. Captain Eric Martel of 1. FC Köln, for example, is the undisputed leader of the U21 team, along with Rocco Reitz (Mönchengladbach).

The squad is well-stocked. Someone like Darmstadt 98 captain Clemens Riedel had no chance of being considered despite a good season in the second division. Di Salvo has 16 players who currently play in the Bundesliga or will play next season, as well as Brajan Gruda from Premier League club Brighton and Hove Albion and Bright Arrey-Mbi from Portuguese first division side Sporting Braga.

But of course, things could have been even better. That is, if this summer hadn't been the first Club World Cup. Di Salvo would have loved to have goalkeeper Jonas Urbig, midfielder Tom Bischof (both FC Bayern ), and especially the two speedy attackers Karim Adeyemi and Maxi Beier (Borussia Dortmund) there.

He's all the more pleased that Nick Woltemade is joining the team. The center forward is urgently needed for the U21s, but, after consultation with national coach Julian Nagelsmann, was initially part of the senior squad for the Nations League. Despite the defeat against Portugal, in which Woltemade had a mediocre debut with highlights and downfalls, the 23-year-old will not travel to the U21s until Monday, after the third-place play-off.

The fact that he was absent from the joint preparation was "no problem for Nick," Di Salvo believes, "he's not jumping in at the deep end with us, but has been involved in every activity for the past year and a half."

Hermann Gerland is there as an assistant

Among the team is Hermann Gerland, who assists the U21 national team coach alongside former Darmstadt assistant coach Ovid Hajou. Gerland is already 71 years old and, two years ago, downed a few shots of cola and whiskey live on Sport1's breakfast TV show "Doppelpass," which is hardly a compliment for a youth coach, but the veteran is clearly valuable. "Hermann is very popular with players and staff; he's very direct," says Di Salvo. "I'm happy to have such an experienced professional at my side."

In the preliminary round, Germany will first face Slovenia next Thursday (9 p.m./Sat.1), then the Czech Republic on June 15, and then fellow favorites England on June 18. Two years ago, Germany suffered defeats against both the Czech Republic and England, resulting in an early exit.

That should be warning enough and should be avoided at all costs this time, and with this good squad, that should be possible. Coach Di Salvo rightly sees "high potential" in many areas. It's now up to him and his chosen players to realize that potential.