Germany U21 head coach Antonio Di Salvo speaks on personnel choices ahead of Italy clash | OneFootball

After the Germany U21 “B-squad” helped the team conclude an undefeated group stage on Wednesday evening, head coach Antonio Is Salvo has some personnel decisions to make ahead of the next match. The DFB-Juniors are due to face the Italian U21s in the U21 European Championship quarterfinals tomorrow. Di Salvo remained enthusiastic about the upcoming fixture when speaking at a Saturday press round.

“It’s a knockout match,” Di Salvo emphasized. “My [Italian] roots naturally come into play [when thinking about the game] occasionally, but I’m focused on the game. [The England performance] makes my selection process harder, but I’m happy to have hard decisions to make. I’m happy that the lads delivered a top performance against a top opponent.”

With passage to the knockouts already booked, Di Salvo actually ended up rotating out his entire XI against England on Wednesday. In a pre-match interview, di Salvo revealed that he initially planned to “leave at least one axial [player pairing on the pitch]”, but ultimately decided to rest everyone after consultation with the players. Di Salvo also interestingly stated “one piece of the puzzle then leads to the next“.

“Yes, I definitely have to think about it,” Di Salvo answered when asked if anyone from Wednesday’s XI would start on Sunday. “The idea was to force me to think about it. The team really presented itself excellently. Many players were able to come to the fore. Not all eleven will play, that’s already clear, but I’m already thinking about making some changes.”

Many players made a good impression against England. Mainz’s Nelson Weiper scored his first ever Germany U21 goal,yet probably won’t displace the tournament’s current leading goal scorer, Stuttgart’s Nick Woltemade. Eintracht Frankfurt’s Ansgar Knauff, on the other hand, may parlay his excellent performance into a start over Brighton’s Brajan Gruda, who is sitting on a yellow card.

Freiburg’s Merlin Röhl may also start over Borussia Mönchengladbach’s Rocco Reitz, who is also sitting on a booking. New Bayer Leverkusen signing Tim Oermann also did a fine job deputizing for Freiburg’s Max Rosenfelder in central defense. Given that the Italians have employed plenty of tactical shifts in the tournament thus far, Di Salvo may wish to make some subtle tweaks ahead of the forthcoming match.

“We will work on things on the final training session and decide on the starting XI tomorrow,” Di Salvo concluded.

GGFN | Peter Weis