Raphael #Guerreiro's decision to represent Portugal at international level has been fully vindicated, but there's nothing to suggest the departing Borussia Dortmund left-sided specialist wouldn't have enjoyed equal success had he plumped for France. A thread 🧵
After coming through France's renowned Clairefontaine academy, Guerreiro signed for Caen, where he pledged his international allegiance to his father's homeland, Portugal, ahead of his country of birth. ⬇️
Givors-born Anthony Lopes and Adrien Silva, the latter having lived in France until the age of 12, also opted for an international career with The Navigators instead of Les Bleus.
Jordan Beyer (FC Burnley) and Jan Thielmann (1. FC Köln) will have to leave the U21 national team training camp in South Tyrol due to injury. Both will therefore be absent from the U21 European Championship in Georgia and Romania (21st June to 8th July). [DFB]
Head coach Antonio Di Salvo had originally named 26 players in the provisional European Championship squad.
Due to the absence of Beyer, Thielmann and Patrick Osterhage (VfL Bochum), who did not travel to the training camp due to injury, the squad has now been reduced to 23 players. The DFB will report the finalised squad to UEFA by Wednesday evening.
Germany just drew 3-3 against Ukraine. You were likely not satisfied with the result.
Hansi #Flick: "Looking back on the game, it was a relatively easy - almost too easy - start." [DFB] #GERUKR
Flick: "We scored pretty early on and then had the feeling that everything would go great for us and that we could rely on that. All of our mistakes were instantly punished and we just weren't good enough in defence."
Flick: "We know that we have a lot of work ahead of us still and that this is just the beginning of the process, so we need to eliminate these mistakes in our upcoming games and be rock-solid in defence."
Hansi #Flick after the game on his view of the game: "We started well, scored a quick goal and had chances to score another, but then conceded through individual mistakes once again and lost confidence." [@ZDF] #GERUKR
Flick: "We have to work on that and make sure we implement the things we trained in a better way"
Flick: "I feel sorry for the team because they really tried everything. Luckily she at least managed to equalize."