Written by Nicolas Horn and Christian Spiller for Die Zeit:
For many, Manu is the best No 1 ever – the libero who revolutionised the goalkeeping game. “He is able to give a team a feeling that no other keeper in the world can,” Leon Goretzka once said about him. But is Neuer, now 38, still the best German goalkeeper? After the team’s disappointing group-stage exit at the 2022 World Cup, Neuer went on a ski tour with friends – and broke his lower right leg. While he lay in his sick bed, Bayern sacked his friend and goalkeeping coach Toni Tapalovic. “I felt like my heart was being ripped out,” Neuer said in an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung. The veteran keeper has been back playing since October 2023 but is not quite his old self, making a costly error in Bayern’s Champions League defeat to Real Madrid. But Julian Nagelsmann has committed himself: Manuel Neuer will start in goal.