Julian Nagelsmann’s second DFB squad also shows that the national coach is aware of the oddity of his task. He has to do things that are supposedly mutually exclusive – and he has to do it quickly.
For a while in this country, the age of players was the decisive evaluation criterion for coaches. Anyone who took care of raising and nurturing the squad as a coach was considered progressive and fundamentally welcome; Whoever gave preference to older players was a retro creature that must have come to earth shortly after the beak-headed dinosaur and also ran the risk of being mentioned in the same breath as Bruno Labbadia.