{"id":774365,"date":"2026-09-18T05:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T05:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/774365\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T05:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T05:06:13","slug":"jurgen-klopp-wants-his-germany-team-to-reclaim-national-pride-from-the-wrong-people-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/774365\/","title":{"rendered":"J\u00fcrgen Klopp wants his Germany team to reclaim national pride from \u2018the wrong people\u2019 | Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"

J\u00fcrgen Klopp has said Germany\u2019s football team can help ensure \u201cnational pride is not entrusted to the wrong people\u201d after a recent far-right AfD election victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a Frankfurt press conference announcing his first Germany<\/a> squad, the former Liverpool manager referenced a recent state election win by the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party.<\/p>\n

The AfD won almost 44% of the vote in the former East German state of Saxony-Anhalt<\/a> on 6 September and expects strong results in elections on Sunday in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.<\/p>\n

Klopp took the Germany job in July after the four-time World Cup winners experienced a third straight early elimination at the tournament. The 59-year-old has often spoken out about social issues<\/a> during his time as manager of Liverpool, Borussia Dortmund and Mainz.<\/p>\n

While not mentioning the AfD by name, Klopp advocated for adopting \u201cpositive patriotism\u201d, while saying: \u201cI don\u2019t want to entrust national pride to the wrong people. A crazy amount of things have happened not that long ago. There was a vote which some people probably found OK, but others would have thought: \u2018Good heavens, what\u2019s going on here?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the perspective of someone in sport, I\u2019d like to reclaim the flag for myself and for us. When we wave it, I don\u2019t want that someone thinks: \u2018What\u2019s going on with you?\u2019 I want that they think you\u2019re happy and you understand how lucky you are to be born in this wonderful country or to have moved here and live here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of national pride, Klopp said he was \u201cnot even sure if one can \u2013 or is allowed to \u2013 use that term any more without it being misunderstood\u201d. He said: \u201cI can be proud of being German and still be open, diverse, kind and friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Klopp said it was more important that the country had enough doctors and caregivers but said football can \u201cfoster a sense of community here, allowing us to truly feel the power of sport\u201d.<\/p>\n

He took the unusual step of naming a 44-man squad for four upcoming Nations League matches, despite matchday lists being restricted to 23 players. \u201cIt\u2019s very unusual that you\u2019ve got four games in two weeks with the national team,\u201d Klopp said. \u201cI want to get to know as many players as possible in that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Germany start away to the Netherlands, then play Greece home and away either side of hosting Serbia.<\/p>\n

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Florian Wirtz and Kai Havertz will probably be limited to a maximum of two of the games as Klopp looks to fit in more new faces and reduce the workload on players. Karim Adeyemi returns for the first time in 11 months after a positive start at Barcelona and Ajax\u2019s Marc-Andr\u00e9 ter Stegen is the first-choice goalkeeper after Manuel Neuer\u2019s international retirement.<\/p>\n

Elversberg\u2019s Felix Keidel is among the players called up to Germany\u2019s squad for the first time. Photograph: David Inderlied\/DPA\/AP<\/p>\n

Many of the players called up have never played for Germany. Some, such as the Elversberg midfielder Felix Keidel and the Eintracht Frankfurt forward Younes Ebnoutalib, have played a handful of top-division games. Celtic\u2019s Mika Baur, Brentford\u2019s Vitaly Janelt and the Cologne youngster Said El Mala are among more new faces.<\/p>\n

The striker Deniz Undav and winger Leroy San\u00e9 were not selected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"J\u00fcrgen Klopp has said Germany\u2019s football team can help ensure \u201cnational pride is not entrusted to the wrong…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-774365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}