You probably won’t be able to tell when he makes his debut in the German goal on Friday evening, but there are days full of excitement behind Alexander Nübel. When he arrived at the national team in Herzogenaurach on Monday, he didn’t yet know whether he would be used in one of the two upcoming international matches – in Zenica, Bosnia and three days later in Munich against the Netherlands – or whether Oliver Baumann would not be given the nod Deputy would be given for the injured Marc-André ter Stegen. Since Tuesday evening he has been certain: his big moment will come in the well-arranged Bilino Polje stadium with 13,000 seats, and Nübel sees himself, a few days after his 28th birthday, having reached the peak of his anything but linear and sometimes quite rocky career .
It is a bizarre coincidence that the old industrial town of Zenica on the Bosna River has been a twin town of Gelsenkirchen since 1969, where Nübel learned the joys and sorrows of professional football as a young goalkeeper. When he left his home region in East Westphalia with a heavy heart in 2015 and moved from Oberntudorf near Paderborn to Gelsenkirchen to become a goalkeeper at Schalke 04, he could only imagine the experiences the job would offer. His debut as a professional at Schalke in May 2018, replacing main goalkeeper Ralf Fährmann, was still a carefree pleasure: It was the last matchday, Schalke had long been runner-up, which at the time was actually a title because of the hopelessly dominant Bayern, and the zero endured with him.
The Bavarians soon took a liking to Nübel, who had now become the starting goalkeeper, and Nübel liked the idea of being able to mature into a better goalkeeper in the powerful but also protective shadow of Manuel Neuer. The farewell semester in Gelsenkirchen took a toll on him. After his commitment to Munich, he was removed as captain and from then on not only had the opposing attackers but also the home crowd against him. Low point of lasting memory: At the end of February 2020, at the 3-0 defeat in Cologne, the FC fans shouted “Nübel out!” and the Schalke fans immediately joined the chorus.
Alexander Nübel’s checkered goalkeeping biography has little in common with the career of his 34-year-old national team colleague Baumann, who as a professional belonged to two clubs in tranquil surroundings: SC Freiburg and TSG Hoffenheim. In Munich, Nübel found that Manuel Neuer was not prepared to give him anything from Bayern’s big program (as he had promised). He therefore went on loan to Monaco and learned to be independent there, but despite two seasons of constant action, his fundamental doubts did not leave him behind. No professional trainer has ever questioned his extraordinary talent, but the question he asked himself did How good am I really? also followed him in sunny southern France.
With six professionals, the VfB Stuttgart faction is the largest in the squad
It was already foreseeable that he could one day be in the German goal when coach Domenico Tedesco announced open competition in Schalke’s winter quarters for the second half of the season and Fährmann lost the place to Nübel. However, he only made the progress that was still missing at VfB Stuttgart, where FC Bayern parked him until one day Manuel Neuer might retire. The contract was renewed accordingly. From Munich, Nübel continues to be looked after remotely by the local goalkeeping coach Michaelrechner; at VfB, specialist Steffen Krebs has promoted development. Sebastian Hoeneß is also said to have a great influence, and Nübel has become particularly better as a goalkeeper. He only acquired the sometimes almost provocative coolness in the face of the opposing attacker at VfB.
However, as can be seen from Julian Nagelsmann’s current squad, his rise to national player status is not exclusive to his club. Already in the summer at the European Championships, VfB replaced the usual addresses in Munich and Dortmund as the DFB’s court purveyor. Now the six-strong Stuttgart group is once again the largest in the squad, and – apart from the replacement Jamie Leweling – that is not even due to the flood of injury-related cancellations that have now befallen Nagelsmann.
So Nübel has done well with his temporary worker environment. He sees his upcoming debut as a “reward” and “crowning,” as he said in an RTL interview. The Hoffenheimer Baumann gets the game in Munich, at the location of his future sporting home. But the competition for the games until Ter Stegen’s return – which will hardly happen before September 2025 – begins on Friday evening in Gelsenkirchen’s sister city Zenica.
