Niklas Süle tested positive
Five players left, four isolated: The fourth corona wave is now affecting German football
Regardless of the positive corona findings in their own ranks, the DFB team trained in Wolfsburg in the afternoon
© Swen gatekeeper / DPA
Niklas Süle has tested positive for the corona virus. This triggers a chain reaction in the national soccer team: five players have left, four more are being isolated until further notice – and the debate about the responsibility of soccer in the pandemic flares up again.
Corona incidences are rising dramatically across the country, and for a long time professional sport appeared to be a lonely island that the virus could not pose a serious threat to. Game operations in the first and second Bundesliga are still running smoothly. But now the pandemic has hit the German national team with force. On Monday evening, Niklas Süle tested positive even though he has been vaccinated twice. The central defender of FC Bayern has already left the national team’s hotel in Wolfsburg, as team doctor Tim Meyer said on Tuesday.
Süle’s positive result has triggered a chain reaction: Serge Gnabry, Joshua Kimmich, Jamal Musiala (all FC Bayern) and Karim Adeyemi (RB Salzburg) are also not available for the World Cup qualifier against Liechtenstein (8.45 p.m., RTL). The Munich-Land health department ordered the Bayern professionals to be quarantined. Like Süle, the players left Wolfsburg. Four other players – not named players – are kept away from the rest of the team for safety reasons. “They sit at separate tables, isolated from the team,” explained Tim Meyer on Tuesday.
National coach Hansi Flick nominated Ridle Baku, Maximilian Arnold and Kevin Volland as substitutes for the five players in quarantine. Baku and Arnold had a short journey: They play for VfL Wolfsburg, in whose stadium the game against Liechtenstein will take place on Thursday evening. Volland is under contract with AS Monaco.
From a sporting point of view, the loss is not a big deal
From a sporting point of view, Hansi Flick can get over the loss of the Bayern block. The DFB team is already qualified for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Flick wanted to use the two games against Liechtenstein and on Sunday against Armenia (6 p.m., RTL) to rotate personnel in some positions. For the first time he appointed Lukas Nmecha from VfL Wolfsburg, a classic center forward. Since the departure of Miroslav Klose after the 2014 World Cup, this position has been vacant in the national team; now the 22-year-old young attacker can try his hand at it.
Flick’s personal games are pushed into the background by the Corona case in Süle. Especially since not all questions have been clarified. The most important one is: Why did Gnabry, Kimmich, Musiala and Adeyemi have to leave? Assuming a double vaccination, according to the recommendation of the Robert Koch Institute, they did not necessarily have to be quarantined. Unless they showed conspicuous symptoms – which the DFB denied in a statement. This would suggest the reverse conclusion that the three Bayern players and Adeyemi may not have been vaccinated. Joshua Kimmich is known to have not been vaccinated. His case had sparked widespread public debate more than a week ago.
No information about vaccination status
Team doctor Tim Meyer did not want to give any information on the vaccination status of the players who were sent home on Monday in Wolfsburg. “This is subject to medical confidentiality,” said Meyer and pointed out that a lack of vaccination protection was only one criterion for a quarantine order. It also counts “the intensity of the contact” to a person who tested positive, said Meyer. A total of nine players traveled to the international match on the same plane that Süle was in.
The subject of Corona will keep German football busy for longer, that much seems certain. Christian Seifert, head of the German Football League (DFL), recently proudly announced that the vaccination rate among German professionals was 94 percent – well above the average for the normal population.
Now Süle’s positive PCR test is paralyzing training in the national team. The corona debate that Joshua Kimmich sparked is flaring up again. For example, the question of why the 2-G rule applies to the 26,000 spectators of the Liechtenstein game on Thursday, whereas the 3-G rule applies to the players down on the lawn. From a purely legal point of view, it is like this: Spectators are subject to the infection protection regulations, the more liberal occupational safety law applies to the players.
Just: Does this dichotomy make sense? Doesn’t the inequality of treatment reinforce the cliché that footballers per se enjoy a special status and are now also freed from the troubles of corona prevention? Don’t footballers have a so-called role model function? Questions that will certainly be debated in the next few days. In any case, football has learned from the Süle case that it is also vulnerable – and not an island that is spared from the fourth wave.