Newcastle United pair overlooked in final game before World Cup
Newcastle United have two players in Germany’s World Cup squad but neither are likely to start their opening game.
Malick Thiaw and Nick Woltemade were unused substitutes as Germany rounded off their World Cup preparations with a 2-1 win over the USA.
The Newcastle United pair were two of only four outfield players not to make it onto the pitch as manager Julian Nagelsmann made wholesale changes throughout the second half.
Germany beat Finland 4-0 in their other warm-up game, with Thiaw also remaining on the bench, while Woltemade only played the remaining quarter of an hour.
Malick Thiaw and Nick Woltemade slip down Germany’s pecking order
Thiaw finds himself behind Bayern Munich’s Jonathan Tah and Borussia Dortmund’s Nico Schlotterbeck in the centre-back pecking order, while it appears Woltemade has dropped to third-choice striker.
Deniz Undav, who plays for Woltemade’s former club Stuttgart, led the line against Finland and excelled by scoring twice and registering an assist. Havertz got the nod against the USA and also claimed a goal and an assist.
Perhaps Woltemade’s best chance of minutes will be in a deeper role, despite Nagelsmann firing thinly veiled swipes at Eddie Howe for doing the same thing during the second half of last season.
Indeed, the Germany boss contradicted himself slightly when he deployed Woltemade in the No.10 role in his cameo appearance against Finland last Sunday.
Germany’s World Cup campaign gets underway a week today as they take on Curacao in their Group E opener before going up against Ivory Coast and Ecuador.
Nick Woltemade reflects on debut season at NUFC
Woltemade heads to the World Cup on the back of a challenging debut campaign at Newcastle United.
The 24-year-old scored 11 goals last season after joining from Stuttgart for a club-record £64million, but only two of those have come this year. From February onwards, Howe has used Woltemade either in a three-man midfield or in the No.10 role.
Reflecting on his first season in the Premier League, Woltemade told CBS Sports: “The best preparation you can have, I think, is the hardest league. We play in the Champions League and every game (in the) Premier League. It can’t be harder, to be honest. Especially athletic-wise, it helped me a lot.
“You have to do more sprints, more duels and you have to be in the moment otherwise this league is so hard. It helped me a lot (for the World Cup) and also, I started with a lot of goals, I played really good games then there was a difficult period for me also.
“In the last few games, I was getting better. For my first season, I’m fine. I had some good scorers (goals), I had some good moments. You can see in my games that I have developed and I have the quality to be a good player in this league.”