Nations League: Keeper Baumann’s DFB debut against Bosnia-Herzegovina

Of course it was Oliver Baumann again who had to go through the media course after the unfortunate 1-1 draw at VfB Stuttgart. In the ninth minute of stoppage time, Stuttgart’s Ermedin Demirovic actually managed to equalize – in the follow-up to a hand penalty that Baumann had initially saved well. So it was nothing with Hoffenheim’s second win of the season, which seemed almost certain after a good performance and the goal from Valentin Gendrey.

For many years, Baumann has been one of the few faces that the public associates with his employer. Post-game interviews have been part of his everyday life since he moved from Freiburg to Hoffenheim in 2014. On Sunday, with a lot of sense for the meta level, he once again revealed what he thinks of the simmering Hoffenheim coaching discussion. He identified “a big step in development”: “everyone fought and defended each other.”

Baumann wanted to say that a team that plays against the coach performs differently. And that’s exactly what he’s said explicitly over and over again in the past few weeks. How the club management thinks about the near future of coach Pellegrino Matarazzo has not been known for weeks. After the sacking of sports director Alexander Rosen, which was criticized not only by fans, there is no one left in the TSG power center who can comment on core business. Except for Matarazzo, who, for obvious reasons, only speaks cautiously. And Baumann, who seemed in a good mood on Sunday because he will soon be making his national team debut at the proud age of 34.

This is exactly what he had been denied in the almost 15 years of his professional career. Baumann, who had already been nominated for the national selection in the U18, has the misfortune of being born in 1990. So he was 16 years old when Manuel Neuer played his first Bundesliga game. The new one who made his debut as a national goalkeeper in 2009 and would still have his place there today if he hadn’t announced his resignation a few weeks ago. But as we know, that was by no means the only twist that contributed to the unusual situation in the German goal before the international matches in Bosnia-Herzegovina on Friday and against the Netherlands on Monday.

Baumann is considered a pupil of Christian Streich at SC Freiburg

The games for which national coach Julian Nagelsmann welcomed his squad to Herzogenaurach on Monday are the first since the serious knee injury of Marc-André ter Stegen, the German goalkeeper behind Neuer and the scheduled regular goalkeeper at the 2026 World Cup. Kevin Trapp, too long-time number three, is currently injured and is also brilliantly represented at Eintracht Frankfurt by the Brazilian Kauã Santos. Bernd Leno from Fulham FC turned down Nagelsmann because he didn’t want to sit on the bench. “They told me I would be there but wouldn’t get a game. That’s why I decided to train in London,” he told the Bild.

Instead, Janis Blaswich from RB Salzburg is number three, as well as Baumann and Stuttgart’s Alexander Nübel, 28, who just faced each other in the Bundesliga on Sunday. Nagelsmann has already decided that Baumann will play at least once for the DFB. After a long wait, the Hoffenheimer “deserved to get an international match”.

Baumann, according to his coaches, was always “one of the best German goalkeepers” for a long time, but it would never have occurred to him to complain loudly about the injustice of the world and demand more consideration in the national team. It’s quite possible that his nature also suits him. Baumann is considered someone who is not overcome by self-doubt when he spends two evenings in a row in front of the television at home. The low-stimulus climate of his adopted home in Heidelberg also fits perfectly with socialization in Freiburg, which is also tranquil.

There, at the sports club, “Oli” grew up in football: as a pupil of Christian Streich, whom the long-time coach took from the youth teams all the way up to the professionals, where he was already a regular goalkeeper in the 2010/11 season. Baumann is the best and most complete keeper trained at the sports club this century. In contrast to successors like Alexander Schwolow or the young Noah Atubolu (who can still learn), he is not only strong on the line, but also in positional play.

His footballing skills have improved significantly in recent years. Hardly anyone can fool him on the line anyway, and he doesn’t make any more serious mistakes than the keepers who are ahead of him in the hierarchy. And there is now a little consolation for the hardships on the big stage for the rock-solid goalkeeper from Breisach am Rhein. Oliver Kahn has 557 Bundesliga games, Manuel Neuer, who is four years older, has 505. And Baumann? Since he played his first Bundesliga game in Dortmund on May 8, 2010, 466 more have been added, 130 for Freiburg and 336 for Hoffenheim. If Baumann continues like this, he could be Germany’s record goalkeeper sometime in 2027. And if nothing else comes up, he will have played his first international match long ago.