Oliver Bierhoff says Germany will make the best of their current injury situation

It’s no secret that Die Mannschaft has an injury crisis on its hands. Ahead of their upcoming matches against Argentina (friendly) and then Estonia (Euro 2020 qualifier), Germany has a total of 10 players out injured: Julian Draxler, Leon Gortetzka, Matthias Ginter, Leroy Sane, Antonio Rudiger, Thilo Kehrer, Jonas Hector, Toni Kroos, Kevin Trapp, and Nico Schulz — while both Timo Werner and Ilkay Gundogan are also doubts.

Joachim Löw has already called up Schalke’s Suat Serdar and, more recently, Hoffenheim’s Sebastian Rudy and SC Freiburg’s Robin Koch to help fill some of the injury gaps. With such a mixed group of players, Löw will have some difficult decisions to make with his team selections for both matches, though he will certainly have a bit more flexibility given that one of the matches is a friendly.

While the squad is hampered with injuries, manager Olivier Bierhoff still feels Die Mannschaft can and will make the best of a difficult situation (kicker). In a rebuilding phase, Bierhoff said, it’s not ideal to not have all of the right personnel present and playing together:

Of course it’s a little worrisome that for the team rebuild there isn’t time to rehearse everything, grow together, and spend time with one another. There are not many more meetings planned before Euro 2020.

On the flip side, he said, the shortfall gives Löw and the rest of the coaching staff an opportunity try out some new players who might not otherwise have received chance:

It also gives you the opportunity to test the one player or the other for 90 minutes and to give them a platform. It’s often the case that five or six players always travel home disappointed. That won’t happen to us this time. We have are confident in those who are still available.

Photo by Federico Gambarini/picture alliance via Getty Images

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