Marc-André ter Stegen needs surgery

National soccer goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen needs surgery at the start of the World Cup year. The 33-year-old will undergo surgery on his injured thigh on Friday, Ter Stegen’s club FC Girona announced on Wednesday. The exact downtime will be announced after the operation, it said. The keeper, on loan from FC Barcelona, ​​has suffered a muscle injury.

Julian Nagelsmann had already confirmed that he would be missing his number one for the start of the World Cup year with the international matches on March 27th in Basel against Switzerland and on March 30th in Stuttgart against Ghana. The national coach had already commented on the injury on Tuesday: “Marc was just back and on a really good path, we were really looking forward to his return to the national team. Now we have to continue to do without him – but for Marc personally this setback is of course much harder.” At the moment the only thing that matters to the goalkeeper is getting healthy in peace. “We are all behind him.”

It remains to be seen whether Ter Stegen will be able to play in Germany’s goal despite another long break at the World Cup in the summer. Ter Stegen suffered the injury last Saturday in Girona’s 0-1 defeat at bottom-placed Real Oviedo. It was only the second game he played for his new club.

Hoffenheim’s Oliver Baumann (ten international matches) is currently number one in the national team. Most recently, Stuttgart’s Alexander Nübel (two international matches), Augsburg’s Finn Dahmen (0) and Freiburg’s Noah Atubolu (0) were also in the squad.
There had been repeated speculation about a return campaign by long-time number one Manuel Neuer. In the group stage the German team will face Curaçao, Ivory Coast and Ecuador. After the international matches in March, only the games on May 31st against Finland and on June 6th against World Cup co-hosts USA are left.