Mario Basler once again struck a blow. This time the former Bundesliga star is smoking a U21 player and a senior national player.
BVB professional Karim Adeyemi recently canceled the German U21 national team’s qualifying games for the 2025 European Championship. Reason: He would rather keep fit in Dortmund. “An absolute impudence,” says Mario Basler. “As DFB, I wouldn’t invite Adeyemi to the next big tournament with the senior national team. I would set an example, also for the future, for the young players. You can recommend the U21 for the senior national team. I hope that the DFB reacts to this,” said the 1996 European champion in his podcast “Basler ballert”.
Basler complained that Adeyemi wasn’t even a regular player at BVB. “Even Reus, with his certain age, is now playing in front of Adeyemi.” If the 54-year-old has his way, there is no place for the attacker in national coach Julain Nagelsmann’s squad. “I would punish a player like that early on and tell him clearly that next year’s European Championships at home will take place without him.”
The state of the German national soccer team makes Basler “simply sad” about six months before the tournament in his own country. In the past, it was “really just about the result,” “how much Germany wins against Austria,” commented the former Bayern star. the 0-2 defeat in Vienna. “Today you have to think about it, hopefully we don’t lose too much. Times have changed completely and I just think that we have a problem with the national team playing friendly matches. That’s what the players have now “I’m not that keen on it.”
Basler suggests a training camp in Malente, where Franz Beckenbauer’s legendary DFB team let the “spirit of Malente” out of the bottle in 1974 before becoming world champions. At the sports school, Julian Nagelsmann’s team was able to “internalize how beautiful and how important it is and, above all, what significance it has to be able to play for Germany.”
Basler: “Wank away” the ball instead of trying to play football
Nagelsmann is still the right man in the national coach’s chair, said Basler. On the other hand, he thinks Antonio Rüdiger is completely out of place in the defense of the DFB team. The Real Madrid player “can’t play the ball straight anymore. Well, he makes more mistakes than I do when dancing. That’s why I have to put it in such extreme terms. I can’t dance and he’s slowly giving me the feeling that he can’t could play football,” rumbled “Super Mario”.
In the current situation, Germany would benefit from a defender like Jürgen Kohler, said Basler. The “football god” used to do it right. He jerked the ball away and kicked his opponent 14 times and didn’t try to play football because he knew he couldn’t do it properly. And then he the balls were kicked away. Maybe Rüdiger should think about that too. Just play or shoot a ball away instead of trying to play football.”
Rüdiger away – instead Basel would give Waldemar Anton from VfB Stuttgart and Robin Koch from Eintracht Frankfurt a chance. They “couldn’t do any worse,” scoffed the former national player. And: “They’re up for it, they’re happy, they’d have their fingers chopped off if they were allowed to be part of the national team and that’s why, if I’m going to experiment, I’d do it right.”