There’s been a long running club vs country battle with managers always keen to see their players pull out of squads to reduce any fatigue or injury risk. Rarely do you see it where a club is adamant that their player has to play.
It seems that Bayern Munich President Uli Hoeness is keen to do everything he can to stick up for his goalkeeper Manuel Neuer. The Mirror reported on some comments he made to Sport1 which show Hoeness has started a very public spat with his possible replacement Marc-Andre ter Stegen.
Things have escalated way out of hand since then. A story from Sueddeutsche suggests the Bayern President told German media that he would prevent any Bayern players playing for Germany if ter Stegen played ahead of Manuel Neuer for the national team.
It’s a fairly extreme reaction and one that would surely mean FIFA would have to step in if it actually became true.
It would also have a gigantic effect on the actual team, Bayern usually have around eight to ten players in the squad when Germany play so that would take out several key players.
The form of Neuer has been under question for a while, he does have 90 caps but nobody can be completely untouchable. Ter Stegen has been outstanding for Barcelona for a few years now so if the manager wants to play him then that’s absolutely his choice.
It would be fascinating to see Neuer left on the bench for the next game, mainly just to see what the reaction from Hoeness would actually be.