While the Philipp Lahm story continues with yet more snapshot excerpts from the tabloid Bild, the mundane business of football goes on – and with it the news that Mario Gómez has had to pull out of the national team squad for the games against Austria and Poland.
Having scored his first hat-trick of the season in Bayern’s 3-0 win at Kaiserslautern, last season’s Bundesliga leading goalscorer then aggravated an adductor muscle – though he has not been fully fit since taking a knock in the second leg of the Champions’ League play-off against FC Zürich last week. Having received the news Nationaltrainer Joachim Löw immediately named a like-for-like replacement, nominating VfB Stuttgart’s “Helmut” Cacau to join the twenty-three man squad.
These developments mean that, barring injury, Miroslav Klose should start his 111th international in Gelsenkirchen, with Cacau possibly making the starting line-up in the friendly in Danzig against Poland.
A few months ago I mentioned the secret preview of Germany’s new Trikots, and in the last few days the home shirt has officially been announced. Taking its cue from the designs of the early 1980s but with a subtle Schwarz-Rot-Gold diagonal pinstripe design, the story broke yesterday and was officially released on the DFB site this afternoon.
This new Schwarz und Weiß outfit is set to make its official debut on 11th November, when the Mannschaft take on the Ukraine in Kiev. We should be seeing a similar announcement of the new green away shirt soon – this is the one I think we are all looking out for…
ETA: Further team news… He probably wouldn’t have made it into the team against Austria, but the perpetually unlucky Marco Reus is also out of the squad, having suffered the same injury as Mario Gómez. Having looked set to make his international debut against Uruguay in May only to have to withdraw through injury, the Borussia Mönchengladbach playmaker will in all likelihood have to wait until later in the year to win that coveted first cap.
No replacement has been named on the DFB site, so one can only assume that the Nationaltrainer will now go into both games with a squad of twenty-two instead of the intended twenty-three.