At 22 years old, Aleksandar Pavlović is a fixture in the German national football team. He was far from that in the youth sector.
Miroslav Klose is the national team’s record goalscorer with 71 goals in 137 international matches. He spent his entire youth at the long-defunct SG Blaubach-Diedelkopf. In this respect, it is no surprise to anyone that he never played in the German Football Association’s U-team.
Aleksandar Pavlović came to FC Bayern Munich when he was just seven years old. There he was trained in the youth performance center and made the leap to the professionals. But he only has two more international caps than Klose – both in the U20s.
“I can’t rate 100 percent what he was missing for the U-national teams,” said national coach Julian Nagelsmann at the press conference before the game against Ivory Coast. “Physically, he used to be a bit more childish than he is now. He has become really robust and has worked a lot on his body.” Pavlovic did not play a Bundesliga game under Nagelsmann.
Seven months after Bundesliga debut in the European Championship squad
He only made his debut in October 2023 under Thomas Tuchel, who succeeded Nagelsmann as Bayern coach in the spring of the same year. Seven months later, Julian Nagelsmann named him in the squad for the 2024 European Championship. However, Pavlović missed the tournament and had to cancel due to tonsillitis. He had the tonsils removed that summer.
Job sharing with Leon Goretzka
The 2026 World Cup is now his first major tournament and there was no question of whether he would be named in the squad or whether he would have a place in the starting eleven. The 22-year-old Pavlović plays, and he also pushes his club colleague Leon Goretzka, with whom he shares a kind of job at Bayern, onto the bench.
Sometimes he played on the “double six”, sometimes he played next to Joshua Kimmich, and sometimes they also formed a duo. In the Champions League, Pavlović started all 14 games.
Against Ivory Coast before 13th international match
Kimmich is firmly scheduled as a right-back for the national team, and instead of Goretzka, the national coach prefers Dortmund’s Felix Nmecha.
There is no doubt that Pavlović will be back in the starting line-up against Ivory Coast on Saturday in Toronto, which would be his 13th international match.
In the opening game in the 7-1 win against Curacao, he had three shots on goal, and he stood out even more because of his high passing rate, namely passes forward, into the final third and also into the penalty area. Many can cross and back passes.
League best for difficult passes
A statistic from the past Bundesliga season fits in with this. Pavlović was on the ball an average of 110 times per 90 minutes. He delivered 95 percent of his passes to his teammate; for the passes classified by statisticians as “difficult”, i.e. passes with high opponent pressure, little space or even long passes, it was 72 percent – the best value for the league.
Low top speed
However, there are still areas in which Pavlović needs improvement. This includes duel behavior. In the Bundesliga he only won 48 percent of the duels, even against Curacao it was less than half.
One possible explanation for this is his top speed. Last season, Pavlović was only clocked at 32.8 kilometers per hour. Top sprinters reach 35 kilometers per hour and more.
The reason why the Munich native only made two international appearances at youth level and was never considered below the U20 level is probably more due to his physical development.
Strength training for more robust duels
In an interview with “Welt am Sonntag” Pavlović said: “I was in late puberty. Everyone around me felt like they were already adults – and I was still a child. I needed my time, the growth came late.”
Thanks to “strength training on my whole body,” he gained weight.
In the official lists for the World Cup squad, Aleksandar Pavlović is listed as 1.88 meters tall. His weight varies between 75 and 78 kilograms. There is still a bit of room to become more robust in duels.
Pavlović says about strength training: “I still do it very disciplined today.” When he rolls up his sleeves while training in the North Carolina heat, the results show.