{"id":574847,"date":"2025-11-16T21:03:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T21:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/574847\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T21:03:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T21:03:15","slug":"germany-vs-slovakia-preview-fifa-world-cup-2026-qualifier-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/574847\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany vs Slovakia Preview: FIFA World Cup 2026 Qualifier Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the qualifying groups were drawn, the majority of people would have expected Germany<\/a><\/strong> to ease through Group A.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The 2014<\/strong> World Champions are at the top of the group, but it is far from comfortable for them as they are only ahead of second-placed side Slovakia<\/strong><\/a> on goal difference. The visitors also won the reverse fixture 1-0 all the way back in week one.<\/p>\n

The two sides meet in Leipzig<\/strong> tomorrow, knowing that anything but a win for Slovakia<\/a><\/strong> will be enough to see Germany<\/a><\/strong> into the World Cup<\/a><\/strong> Finals<\/strong> for the 19th consecutive time.<\/p>\n

Germany<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Julian Nagelsmann<\/a><\/strong> will be hoping he can see a return to two of his key players for this massive fixture, skipper Joshua Kimmich<\/a><\/strong> and defender Nico Schlotterbeck,<\/a><\/strong> both of whom missed the 2-0 win over Luxembourg<\/a><\/strong> with injuries.<\/p>\n

Schlotterbeck<\/a><\/strong> continues to recover from a foot injury suffered in Dortmund\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> 1-1 draw with Hamburg<\/a><\/strong>, and Kimmich<\/a><\/strong> is recovering from an ankle injury suffered in training last Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Nick Woltemade<\/a><\/strong> is expected to continue up front in what\u2019s been a very good period in front of goal for him for the national team, with three goals in his last three games.<\/p>\n

Slovakia<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

No fresh injury concerns for Slovakia<\/a><\/strong> following their last-gasp 1-0 win over Northern Ireland<\/a><\/strong> on Friday evening.<\/p>\n

There is a boost to their squad as defender Denis Vavro<\/a><\/strong> is once again fit and available after injury.<\/p>\n

He is unlikely to be risked for this game, though, because he has missed all ten of Wolfsburg\u2019s<\/strong> Bundesliga<\/strong> fixtures due to the issue.<\/p>\n

Germany – Nick Woltemade<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Signed by Newcastle<\/a><\/strong> for \u00a369 million last August, Woltemade<\/a><\/strong> has started life on Tyneside in good form with five goals in his last ten games.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s carried that good form into the international break with a brace in a 2-0 win against Luxembourg.<\/p>\n

With Germany<\/a><\/strong> not having a rich vein of strikers available to them, the Bremen-born forward has a good chance to cement his place in that position ahead of the World Cup.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Slovakia – Martin D\u00fabravka<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Slovakia\u2019s<\/strong> defensive record in these qualifiers has been very good, with only two goals conceded across five games, both of them coming in their only defeat in the qualifiers, a 2-0 defeat away at Northern Ireland<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Burnley<\/a><\/strong> keeper Martin D\u00fabravka<\/a><\/strong> has been in goal for all five of the matches. He has made at least two saves in every game so far and made at least four saves in each of the first three games.<\/p>\n

In the Premier League<\/a><\/b> for The Clarets, D\u00fabravka<\/a><\/strong> is by far the best in the league when it comes to saves per 90 with 4.2.<\/p>\n

If Slovakia<\/strong> are to have a chance of qualifying for the World Cup<\/a>,<\/strong> whether it be automatically or through the play-offs, they will need their man between the sticks to be on top form<\/p>\n

Match details<\/p>\n

The match is available to watch on Amazon Prime<\/a><\/strong> as part of their pay-per-view scheme.<\/p>\n

The match will be taking place at the Red Bull Arena<\/a><\/strong> in Leipzig.<\/p>\n

Kickoff is scheduled for 19:45 GMT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the qualifying groups were drawn, the majority of people would have expected Germany to ease through Group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5310],"tags":[182278,2000,299,182276,182277,1824,182279,66338,182275,67409,136762,2558,1514,182280],"class_list":["post-574847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-denis-vavro","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-fifa-world-cup-2026-qualifier","tag-fifa-world-cup-2026-qualifiers","tag-germany","tag-group-a","tag-joshua-kimmich","tag-martin-dubravka","tag-nick-woltemade","tag-nico-schlotterbeck","tag-slovakia","tag-world-cup","tag-world-cup-finals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115561405060183107","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}