Klopp, Kimmich and 44 Names: Germany Reopen a Door That Had Been Shut

The squad list was printed on A4 paper, 44 names arranged in four columns. I have read hundreds of national team lists over more than twenty years in this trade, and usually my eye runs straight to the familiar names. This time it was the opposite. My eye stopped at the gaps.

The place where Leroy Sane should be, empty. The place where Leon Goretzka should be, empty. And beside Joshua Kimmich, where for years the line had read "right-back", this time it read "central midfielder". One word. But in elite football, one word is sometimes enough to change an entire operating system.

Jürgen Klopp spoke about Kimmich with a sentence I replayed again and again in the press conference recording: "Not in a single conversation was he listed as a right-back." He added that the coaching staff see Kimmich as a midfielder. Not a fallback option. Not a stopgap solution. A redefinition of the man.

At 43, I have learned that the biggest changes in football are rarely announced with big statements. They are announced with one small word on one sheet of paper.

Klopp took over Germany at a moment when Goal.com described the DFB's recent past as "gloomy". The Julian Nagelsmann era left behind a collective judged to be lacking connection, and according to the article, lacking the physical presence of the teacher himself. The criticism pointed at Nagelsmann's remote communication, at the distance between the coaching staff and the dressing room.

Klopp arrived and chose the opposite. He spoke of personal visits, of "having them physically in front of me". He kept Kimmich as captain. He added 16 debutants. He called up players from Augsburg, from Elversberg, from Celtic — places Germany had barely looked toward before.

The fixture list awaiting him is not gentle. It opens away to the Netherlands. Then two matches against Greece and one against Serbia. Four matches, 16 new faces, a midfield spine redesigned from scratch.

Based on my experience watching matches, this is the kind of opening the coaching world calls "fixture hell" — not because the opponents are uniquely strong, but because the hardest match arrives first.

Moving Kimmich into midfield is the single most important tactical signal in the entire squad list. For years, Germany built play from the flanks, with full-backs pushing high and central midfielders conducting. When Kimmich leaves the right flank, the build-up axis shifts into the middle. That means Germany will look for advantage by overloading the centre rather than stretching opponents wide.

This is not an invention. The inverted full-back has existed in Europe for years. What Klopp is doing is role reallocation — returning a player to his natural instinct. Kimmich was always a midfielder. His years at right-back were a consequence of Germany lacking someone there, not because he suited the flank best.

What is genuinely radical is the breadth of the list. 44 players with 16 debutants is resource expansion rather than tactical refinement. When a new coach names 44 players across four matches, he is in a culture-setting phase, not a results-maximisation phase.

Against the Netherlands — a side strong in possession and structurally settled — cohesion usually matters more than individual talent. A collective with 16 newcomers will struggle to reach that cohesion in a few training sessions.

Selecting on form rather than reputation is the second signal. Dropping Sane, Goretzka, Deniz Undav and Angelo Stiller while leaving the door open for recalls shows Klopp is building a system where place is decided by stylistic fit. This reduces the risk of overreliance on ageing pillars, but it also creates new pressure: every called-up player understands his spot is not guaranteed.

There is another notable detail. Four Stuttgart players were called up at once, while three Stuttgart players had previously been dropped. Looking at the structure, I see a club-cohesion logic — importing an existing block that has already played together rather than assembling isolated individuals. Alongside them are newcomers from Freiburg, Augsburg, Elversberg, Celtic.

I once stood at the Yodoko Sakura stands, watching a young player make his first start, and I realised this: football does not operate as a sum of individuals, but as a set of verified relationships.

One citable fact: Kimmich is 30 this year, at the peak of his career, with more than 90 caps for the national team. Keeping him as captain while changing his playing position is a shrewd management move — it grants a senior player a rise in status, enough to offset the disruption to his specialist role.

In terms of risk, this structure has many unverified points. A back four must compensate for an emptied right flank — where names like Treu or Vagnoman are expected to fill in. Changing both the central build-up axis and the wide supply line at once is the hardest problem a coach can set for himself across four matches.

I once sat in Rostov in 2026, watching Japan lead Belgium 2-0 and then lose 2-3 in the 90th+4th minute. That lesson remains intact: the distance between a forming collective and a finished one is not measured in talent, but in the number of minutes they have played beside each other.

At a deeper level, this list has a transmission effect. A player from Elversberg wearing the Germany shirt changes the transfer value of the man himself and of his parent club. For clubs that live by selling players, one international call-up is an asset.

And this is where I want to linger a little longer.

The original article was written with a clearly supportive tone, and its headline — "a complete departure from Nagelsmann" — is a powerful framing device. But Klopp himself said he holds "the greatest respect" for Nagelsmann. Those two things do not quite match. Much of the contrast we are reading may be a media product rather than the insiders' own position.

There is a more interesting internal paradox. Klopp builds his image around physical presence — the visits, the meetings, the conversations. Yet he himself revealed he had not yet spoken to Sane and Goretzka at the moment the squad was announced. The distance between a teacher who actively picks up the phone and one who has not yet done so may look small from outside, but it is very large inside a dressing room.

I do not think that is a mistake. I think it is the mark of a hierarchy-first philosophy: there is no room for cossetting, even for big names. But that philosophy only holds while results come. If Germany lose to the Netherlands, the Sane and Goretzka question will return faster than anything else. The ghost in the East Stand never leaves; it only changes shirts.

And the crowd is excited. The article describes a "wave of euphoria". But that wave is built on expectation, not results. Klopp's match count as Germany head coach, as of this moment, is zero. No data sample. No expected goals figure. No pressing numbers. Only a good press conference and a long squad list.

In the silent applause, what I hear most clearly is the heartbeat of the match.

44 names are not a line-up. They are a promise. And a promise is unverified until the referee blows his whistle.

What I will watch is not the result against the Netherlands — the result is only the surface. What I will watch is how often Kimmich touches the ball in midfield, how Germany's right flank looks without him, and whether the names from Elversberg or Augsburg dare to hold the ball against the Dutch.

If they dare, Klopp has opened a door no one can close again. If they do not, we will hear about the old names once more.

People call it defeat; I call it a draft of victory.