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Bayern Munich had Mats Hummels, Jerome Boateng, Joshua Kimmich, Niklas Sule, Sebastian Rudy, and Thomas Muller called up for international duty with Germany for a pair of World Cup qualifiers next week.
This will be Boateng’s first involvement with the German national team since Euro 2016 as he’s just returned from a lengthy injury spell, having only featured 3 times for Bayern this season. The center back took to social media to express his excitement at returning to the national team after so long:
Happy to be back with the @DFB_Team after nearly 1 year! Let's take the final step towards World Cup 2018 #RoadToRussia #jb17 pic.twitter.com/fDGIw7uwCw
— Jerome Boateng (@JB17Official) September 29, 2017
First up for Die Mannschaft is a trip to Belfast to take on Northern Ireland, who sit six points behind Germany in second place in group C with a significantly lower goal difference. A win for Germany over Northern Ireland would mathematically guarantee automatic qualification to Russia in 2018. Germany will also play host to Azerbaijan in Kaiserslautern in the last qualifier of the campaign in what could be an opportunity for Low to give minutes to some of the fringe players in the squad.
Full squad list:
This will be our squad for the final two #WorldCupQualifiers against @NorthernIreland and Azerbaijan. #NIRGER #GERAZE #DieMannschaft pic.twitter.com/IVKG6EnVcf
— Germany (@DFB_Team_EN) September 29, 2017