‘Bayern title haul should fuel Germany’s Euro aspirations’

Bayern Munich’s treble-winning season should feed the hunger for titles in the national team as Germany prepare to host Spain in their Nations League opener on Thursday, the Bavarian club’s defender Niklas Suele said on Tuesday.

Bayern won the domestic league and Cup double and also dominated in the Champions League tournament in Lisbon earlier this month to win their sixth European crown.

Central defender Suele had missed much of the season after a torn cruciate ligament early in the campaign but made the Champions League tournament, and said Germany were now eyeing next year’s European Championship.

The 2020 Euros was postponed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have to keep the hunger for more titles after winning the treble with Bayern,” 24-year-old Suele told a news conference. “I now come here with a lot of joy, knowing how hard it is to come back after a 10-month absence.

“The Nations League is a good next step. We take any test, against any small or big opponent, seriously because we want to prepare for next summer.”

Germany, world champions in 2014, crashed out of the group stage in the 2018 World Cup, their earliest exit in 80 years.

They have since undergone an overhaul and qualified with seven wins out of eight qualifiers for next year’s Euros.

“We have the same hunger for titles in the national team as at Bayern. There is no difference there. We have to wait and see how the new season goes but I think we will have a team that will be competing for the title at the Euro,” Suele said.

Germany are in League A Group 4 in the Nations League and also away to Switzerland on Sept. 6 after Thursday’s home game against Spain.

“I think we have improvement potential and that is why these games are so important,” Suele added.

“It is not easy when you (the squad) meet every two, three months and it must always work. But we will have a team next year that will be ready to play for the title.”

Europe’s national teams will emerge from a 10-month hiatus, still under the shadow the COVID-19 pandemic which brought football to a standstill earlier this year.

There has been no international action in the region since last November and the matches which were played then, such as Italy’s 9-1 demolition of Armenia and Germany’s 6-1 win over Northern Ireland, now seem to belong to a different era.

The intervening period has seen Euro 2020 postponed until next year, while the sport’s European and world governing bodies UEFA and FIFA agreed that club football should take priority as the sport cranked back into action during the summer.

Germany’s clash with Spain in Stuttgart tops the action on the opening day on Thursday while Italy host Bosnia on Friday and, on Saturday, titleholders and European champions Portugal host Croatia and world champions France visit Sweden.

“We will restart with even greater determination,” said Italy coach Roberto Mancini, whose side had chalked up a record-breaking 11 successive wins before the interruption.

Despite travel restrictions around Europe and a surge in novel coronavirus cases in some countries, UEFA said that all games, bar one, would be played in the originally scheduled venues and practically every association will host a game.

“Most member associations have managed to obtain from their competent national/local authorities exemptions allowing teams to travel to the match venue and their players to return to their clubs after their national team duty,” said UEFA.

The only game to be moved was for political reasons - Moldova’s refusal to recognise Kosovo as an independent nation meaning they will host their match in Parma, Italy.

Matches will still have to be played behind closed doors and there are potential complications if players test positive for COVID-19 before matches.

UEFA says that matches will go ahead as long as both teams have at least 13 players available. However, teams who are not able to field a side could forfeit the match, the final decision resting with UEFA’s disciplinary committee.

The Nations League, intended to replace lukewarm friendlies, features all 55 of Europe’s national teams divided into four divisions — Leagues A to D — that are themselves split into four groups. There is relegation and promotion between each league.

Reuters