No A team, no B team: Klopp explains his wild 44-player Germany experiment

Jürgen Klopp's first squad announcement as Germany coach was never going to be ordinary. Forty-four names later, the man himself has explained the madness.

Details: Jürgen Klopp has called up 44 players split into two different squads for Germany's upcoming four Nations League matches. There is no A or B team, the coach insisted, explaining that the unusual schedule of four games in two weeks forced his hand, and that he wants to win all four while gathering as many impressions of the players as possible.

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The scale of the experiment is unprecedented for a national team of Germany's stature. The first 24-man group will face the Netherlands in Amsterdam on September 24 and Greece in Augsburg three days later, before a fresh squad takes over for the October double-header against Serbia and Greece again. Klopp, who officially took office a month ago after the World Cup exit against Paraguay ended the Nagelsmann era, stressed that both squads were built with the same logic: positions and characters that fit together, a careful balance of experienced leaders and young players. The casting has been as bold as the concept: Marc-André ter Stegen installed as the new number one, Leroy Sané and the World Cup's top scorer among the high-profile names left out entirely. For a four-time world champion in the middle of a generational rebuild, the Nations League has effectively become one giant audition, and Klopp sounds like a man who has waited years for this particular challenge. His first real answers come next week in Amsterdam.

It's worth noting that Germany have never won the Nations League, with their best finish coming in the inaugural 2018/19 edition, a record Klopp will be eager to correct.

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