BVB – Brandt: The situation at the DFB was “just as unpleasant as in the last few weeks at the club”

Schlotterbeck is hoping for a home European Championship

For Borussia Dortmund’s Julian Brandt, the situation in the national team was recently “just as unpleasant as it was in the club in the last few weeks”. Nevertheless, the offensive player has a “good feeling” for the home European Championship. “Some other players are certainly in a better position than me because they had more games and were able to show themselves more. And yet I’m not afraid, I’m looking forward to it. I am convinced that I can convince Julian Nagelsmann to take me with him,” Brandt told “Kicker” in an interview.

The DFB team recently lost twice under the new national coach Nagelsmann, and Brandt is currently only fifth in the Bundesliga with BVB. But the 27-year-old is not worried about his participation in the European Championships: “All options are open to me, for the European Championships, for the national team. It’s up to me to give the national coach enough arguments to come along in the summer.” With a market value of 40 million euros, Brandt is the seventh most valuable German footballer.

With BVB he wants to start a race to catch up, similar to last year. “The best thing is when it’s about points straight away, everyone knows that it has to be implemented straight away and we don’t have six weeks for a cross or a goal or a pass to come through at some point. We are now short of time,” emphasized Brandt, who needed some time away from football after the last game of 2023 and traveled to the USA with his brother. “I knew I had to take advantage of these days off as quickly as possible because I was really running on the rim. I cut off all contacts with football and essentially fled. And it was fine like that. If you’re automatically just busy with football every single day, it’s of course fun, but at some point it’ll destroy you if you don’t have anything to compensate for.” With 1,756 minutes, Brandt played the second most of all outfield players at BVB this season.

Schlotterbeck hopes to take part in the home European Championships: “The door is by no means closed for me”

Apart from goalkeeper Gregor Kobel, only Nico Schlotterbeck (1,983) was on the pitch for the black and yellow longer than Brandt. The central defender also hopes to take part in the home European Championship, even if Nagelsmann has not yet taken him into account. “The door is not closed for any player because you can always recommend good performance at the club. If I continue to do this consistently, I might be invited again,” said the 24-year-old to the “Funke Mediengruppe” at the training camp in Marbella.

Schlotterbeck currently has eleven international matches on his personal record, his last was in the 1:4 against Japan in September after Hansi Flick was relieved of his duties. “Of course I would always like to be there and I was disappointed that it wasn’t enough recently. But being disappointed for too long doesn’t help. “You have to perform at the club – and that may not have been convincing enough for the national coach recently,” said the defender, whose market value fell from 40 to 35 million euros in the latest Bundesliga update.

However, there was a conversation with Nagelsmann. “The national coach called me and spoke to me. That was a good exchange. I know what’s important to him and that the door to the European Championship squad is by no means closed for me just because I wasn’t there recently.” Schlotterbeck therefore announced with a view to the European Championships from June 14th to July 14th: “I “I want to make it as difficult as possible for the national coach not to take me with him.”

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