Spanish national team: Bigger than Jens Lehmann thinks

The Spanish are not exactly the biggest team in the current European Championship. Quite the opposite. They have to pay tribute to the fact that they have two of the smallest players in their ranks, Jesús Navas (1.70) and Pedri (1.74). The Spanish squad has an average height of 1.81 meters. The DFB entourage, on the other hand? A full 1.85 meters! Not really that exciting? Not really that exciting. But as was shown on Tuesday in Donaueschingen: it is one thing to take note of facts and quite another to have them rubbed in your face by a former DFB goalkeeper named Jens Lehmann (1.93 meters). Lehmann, 54, was asked on “Welt TV” about Germany’s quarter-final opponents Spain, and he summed it up: The Spanish are too small, too young, too inexperienced compared to the German national team.

But the Spaniards are not that young. Despite the 16-year-old rookie Lamine Yamal, their average age is 27.0 years, which puts them in the middle of the pack of all European Championship participants, far behind the Germans, who have the oldest tournament squad with an average age of 28.6 years. Experience is not quite as easy to measure, especially since it is not entirely clear what kind of experience Lehmann was referring to. The only thing that is clear is that he got the Spanish media excited. At the press conference, Mikel Oyarzábal was asked to wallpaper the dressing room with Lehmann’s slogan.