National football team
Kicked with grandma: Nübel talks about his youth

Football was not the number one sport in Alexander Nübel’s family. photo
© Daniel Löb/dpa
Football didn’t play a big role in Alexander Nübel’s family – with one exception. The goalkeeper once played in the garden with one of his grandmothers.
It started with grandma: national goalkeeper Alexander Nübel owes part of his career to his grandmother. “My grandma played a lot of football with me, she was the only one,” said the 28-year-old in a video from the German Football Association. “In my family, football was hardly present at all.” But he “really played football a lot in the garden with his now 92-year-old grandma, who lived right next door. That was really cool,” said Nübel.
The VfB Stuttgart professional is scheduled to make his international debut this Friday (8:45 p.m./RTL) in the Nations League in Bosnia-Herzegovina. National coach Julian Nagelsmann will have to do without goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen for months because of his knee injury.