DFB legend causes a stir

Lehmann mocks Spaniards as a “youth team”!

Jens Lehmann

(Bild: GEPA)

Jens Lehmann is once again causing a stir - and this time he's even raising international eyebrows! Ahead of the upcoming clash between our northern neighbors and Spain in the European Championship quarter-finals on Friday, Germany's 2008 European Championship goalkeeper upset the proud Iberians. By somewhat disrespectfully referring to the "Furia Roja" as a "youth team" ...

Lehmann, who lost Germany's last meeting with Spain at the 2008 finals in Vienna, sees his successors in the DFB kit as the favorites this time around. As the 54-year-old, who recently attracted attention as a defendant in a "chainsaw trial", explained on "Welt TV", Luis de la Fuente's team is very inexperienced, "it's partly a youth team" ...

According to Jens Lehmann, we are looking at a youth team here ...

(Bild: AFP)

Average age of 27.08 years
Lehmann is obviously referring to players such as Nico Williams (21 years old), Pedri (21), Fermín López (21) and Lamine Yamal (16!). Nevertheless, Spain's European Championship squad has an average age of 27.08 years, which doesn't really look like a "youth team", and not just in comparison to Germany's 28.58 years.

"... that a team [...] is suddenly gone!"
Apart from that, in the course of a tournament like the European Championship, "it always happens that a team that is highly praised like the Spaniards is suddenly gone," said Lehmann. Even if they are "perhaps even a little better than us in terms of quality". He is confident that national coach Julian Nagelsmann's men will win a competitive match against the "Furia Roja" for the first time since 1988.