By Zach Lowy
Zidane isn’t alone: from Roger Milla to Claude Makelélé, from Kevin-Prince Boateng to Lionel Messi, we’ve seen quite a few players rejoin the workforce and prove instrumental in their national team’s success, the latest being Toni Kroos. Three years after retiring, Kroos pulled a U-Turn and helped Germany reach the Euro 2024 quarterfinals, where they lost to eventual champions Spain. Fast forward to today, and there’s another world champion who’s rekindling his Germany adventure ahead of the 2026 World Cup: Manuel Neuer.
Ever since breaking onto the scene at Schalke, Neuer has stood out from everyone else in his position thanks to his ‘sweeper keeper’ style, utilizing his speed and tenacity to anticipate opposing attacks before they manifested, and timing his interventions to perfection. It was a high-risk, high-reward style of goalkeeping that could only be administered by someone of Neuer’s technical prowess, physical fortitude, and mental acuity.
Across a professional career that is now entering its third decade, Neuer has excelled at the highest level and set the standard for goalkeepers both in possession and keeping the ball out of the net, helping Germany claim their first World Cup as a unified country in 2014 and cementing an unprecedented domestic dynasty with Bayern. But these attributes have dwindled thanks to a litany of recent injuries, the first being a metatarsal fracture which saw him miss the bulk of the 2017/18 season. For the first time, Neuer is no longer a sure thing in between the posts: he’s a coin-toss.
“Neuer has been very inconsistent,” stated Bundesliga expert Andrés Weiss. “He’s had stretches where he looked like one of the best in the world — like the first leg at the Bernabéu or the return leg against PSG — but he’s also suffered significantly from a recurring calf injury, which caused him to miss several weeks of competition and even be substituted off on three separate occasions. I believe that on a good day, he absolutely belongs among the elite, but right now, it’s a total toss-up. With Neuer being the starter, I feel like what he gives you, he also takes away. If I were to picture a German side winning the title, Neuer wouldn’t look out of place in that picture. But for that to happen, he would need to cut out the errors that have become increasingly frequent and find a greater level of consistency.”
After Germany’s humiliating group stage elimination in the 2022 World Cup, Neuer went on a ski trip to clear his mind, but he found no serenity: instead, he crashed on the slopes and fractured his tibia and fibula, sidelining him for over 300 days. Since returning in October 2023, Neuer has missed 34 matches due to injury for club and country, predominantly muscular injuries. But whilst Neuer’s body is breaking down more frequently, he’s nevertheless proven more reliable than the man once earmarked to be his successor – Marc-André Ter Stegen – who has played 12 times over the past two seasons.
With Ter Stegen struggling for fitness, Germany manager Julian Nagelsmann has experimented with Alexander Nübel, Kevin Trapp, Finn Dahmen, Stefan Ortega, Janis Blaswich and Bernd Leno, before eventually settling on Hoffenheim’s Oliver Baumann. And yet, just when it seemed that Baumann would be the starter, Nagelsmann decided to bring Neuer back into the fold for his ninth consecutive major tournament as Germany’s #1.
Even at 40 years of age, Neuer is still capable of pulling off world-class performances against the highest caliber of opposition, but it’s unclear whether he can deliver those displays on a consistent basis and remain healthy and error-free. The Neuer of 2026 has yo-yoed between jaw-dropping saves and catastrophic mistakes, as evidenced in Bayern’s Champions League run. He delivered a Man of the Match display at the Santiago Bernabéu with nine saves, but he failed to cover himself in the return leg as Bayern won 4-3 against Real Madrid (6-4 on aggregate). And whilst he came up clutch in the second leg of the semifinals vs. Paris Saint-Germain, it was too little too late after an unconvincing display in a 5-4 defeat in France the week prior.
“For most of the season, Manuel Neuer was in good condition, but in the second half of the campaign, he experienced a lingering calf issue, had a setback, recovered, and then had another setback,” stated Bayern journalist The Barrel Blog. “At times, he was absolutely brilliant and stole games for Bayern Munich. It was not as much the calf injury that affected Neuer during the games where he struggled, but his decision-making. Sometimes, Neuer still thinks he’s 27 again and tries to make aggressive, sweeper-keeper-type plays that he just can’t do anymore.”
“Neuer cannot do everything he did 5-10 years ago, but he is still extremely skilled, still has an insane amount of drive to play (which can work against him at times), and still can deliver amazing performances. Neuer is still smart, and he can still cut down angles, but sometimes he just needs a better understanding of what his body can and cannot do. In some games, Neuer is still just flat-out spectacular. In others, he makes all of the necessary plays needed for the team to win. On those rare occasions where he is off, though, he struggles tremendously. When healthy and fresh, Neuer was terrific, but his struggles often seemed to come after a really busy period.”
After making the 925th appearance of his professional career vs. Köln, Neuer missed the DFB-Pokal Final and Germany’s first pre-tournament friendly with a calf injury. He’s extended his contract for another year at Bayern, and while he is expected to lose a chunk of minutes to successor-in-goal Jonas Urbig, it is undeniable that as long as he decides to keep playing, he will remain the starter.
But as he gears up for the final World Cup of his illustrious journey, two questions remain unanswered:
1) Can Neuer’s body hold up over the course of a six-week tournament?
2) Which Neuer will show up: the one from the Bernabéu, or the one from the Parc de Princes?
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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