
14 Jun
Sun
•12:00pm
NRG Stadium • Houston
20 Jun
Sat
•4:00pm
BMO Field • Toronto
25 Jun
Thu
•4:00pm
MetLife Stadium • New York
Germany head into the 2026 World Cup with a clear idea: to look once again like that team nobody wanted to face in the bracket. After the setbacks of 2018 and 2022, the Mannschaft arrive with a renewed squad, a mix of youth and experience, built around intense, disciplined and highly competitive football. Among the fans they may not be seen as fearsome as in their golden years, but they are still that team which, when a major tournament comes around, almost always enters the conversation for the title.
At the World Cup, Germany boast an almost unique history: four world titles (1954, 1974, 1990 and 2014) and multiple appearances in finals and semi-finals make them one of football’s great powers. Over the decades they have managed to reinvent themselves, evolving from the physical and disciplined style of the 70s and 80s to a more possession-based game in the most recent era, without ever losing their reputation as a dependable tournament team. The recent group-stage exits have been the exception this squad wants to correct.
The names that built the German myth speak for themselves: Franz Beckenbauer as the complete leader from the back, the killer instinct of Gerd Müller, the authority of Lothar Matthäus or the scoring record of Miroslav Klose, joined in more recent times by the security of Manuel Neuer. Alongside them now stand new-generation leaders such as Jamal Musiala, Kai Havertz and Joshua Kimmich, who are expected to prolong that quintessentially German blend of talent, character and competitive reliability.
According to most experts, Germany start as clear favourites to dominate Group E at the 2026 World Cup. The draw has placed them in a mini-league where physical intensity and the variety of styles will demand maximum concentration, but in which the expectation is that the Mannschaft will set the tempo from the very first game. These are their opponents:
Germany’s minimum objective is to finish top of the group and book their ticket to the knockouts in convincing fashion, avoiding the shocks of recent World Cups. The aim is to reach the Round of 16 with good rhythm, clear automatisms and enough confidence for the team, once the knockouts begin, to become again that side that feels at home on the big stage and aspires to add another star to its crest.