National coach Hansi Flick only wants to deal with the question of whether he will include the vaccination status of his national players as a prerequisite for a nomination in the future after the upcoming two international matches. "I hope that there are no longer such topics that we have to send five players home due to Corona, I would like that," said Flick on Wednesday in Wolfsburg. After a positive corona test with the fully vaccinated Niklas Süle, Joshua Kimmich, Jamal Musiala, Serge Gnabry and Karim Adeyemi also had to leave in quarantine.
Kimmich had recently confirmed himself not to be vaccinated. The German Football Association did not provide any information on the vaccination status of Musiala, Gnabry and Adeyemi. Flick emphasized that there is no compulsory vaccination in Germany and those who do not get vaccinated should not be convicted. "For me it is still the only way out of the pandemic to get vaccinated," said the national coach. “In the end, everyone has the responsibility for themselves and the right to refuse.” His opinion is “very clear” that he wants the players to be vaccinated.
"We just have to see how we do it in the future, that will keep us busy for longer, how we protect ourselves." With a view to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the national coach also emphasized that there was still a lot of time until then. At the current course with the World Cup qualifiers on Thursday (8.45 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the national soccer team and on RTL) in Wolfsburg against Liechtenstein and three days later in Yerevan against Armenia, the national players were tested on arrival at the team hotel. The Flick team had already bought the World Cup ticket at the beginning of October. From today's perspective that was particularly good, stressed Flick. "It was a bit of a commotion, but we are now back to normal and have to deliver tomorrow."
In addition to the players who left because of the Corona case, the national coach also has to do without Nico Schlotterbeck, Florian Wirtz and Julian Draxler.
The Paris St-Germain professional sustained a muscle injury during training for the national team.
"I'm sorry for him too," said Flick, who attested that the former Schalke was in good form and spoke about it with his coach Mauricio Pochettino.
The national coach raised hopes for the Wolfsburg attacker Felix Nmecha.
He could be in the starting line-up against Liechtenstein because he already showed his qualities in training.