Felix Keidel: Klopp’s New Wildcard for Germany

When Jürgen Klopp walked into his first press conference as Germany head coach, he didn’t bother with comfort blankets. No sacred cows, no guaranteed spots. Performance, form, work rate – that was the new currency for a place in the DFB squad.

He also dropped one striking number: 57. That was the size of his initial shortlist. Behind that figure lay a clear message – nobody should assume anything, and plenty of new names were being pushed into the conversation after three disastrous World Cups.

Now one of those names, unexpectedly, is Felix Keidel.

From 3. Liga to the national team radar

Late on Tuesday, Bild broke the story: the 23-year-old SV Elversberg player had received an invitation from Klopp. A day later, kicker backed it up with its own information. No trial balloon, no vague rumour. A real call.

It is, by any measure, a shock.

Keidel has only three Bundesliga appearances to his name. His CV at the highest level is almost blank. Yet that is exactly the sort of profile Klopp hinted he would consider – hungry, upwardly mobile, unscarred by the recent failures in a Germany shirt.

Keidel’s journey began at FC Ingolstadt, where he joined the U19s in 2012 and quietly climbed every rung of the youth ladder. By summer 2022 he had earned a place in the first-team squad. He didn’t just make up the numbers.

At 20, he nailed down a regular spot in the 3. Liga side, racking up 37 league games, one goal and four assists. Not headline-grabbing figures, but enough to mark him out as a reliable, intelligent presence across the pitch.

In 2025 came the leap.

Elversberg, still reeling from the heartbreak of narrowly missing out on promotion against 1. FC Heidenheim, moved decisively. They bought Keidel out of his Ingolstadt contract for around €400,000 – a modest fee in modern terms, but a clear statement that they saw him as a core piece of their rebuild.

He barely blinked at the step up. Under Vincent Wagner he quickly became a regular, making 25 league appearances, 13 of them from the start. More importantly, he played a major part in one of the stories of the season: Elversberg’s sensational promotion to the Bundesliga.

From the third tier to the top flight in just over two years. That kind of rise catches the eye of any national coach, especially one determined to rip up old hierarchies.

Three Bundesliga outings – against Leverkusen, Gladbach and, most recently, Bayern – brought his first top-flight goal. Add a DFB Cup tie against MSV Duisburg, where he supplied two assists, and the package was apparently enough for Klopp. Limited sample size, yes. But full of the traits he values.

A fixer for Germany’s problem position?

The big question now hangs over his head: is Felix Keidel ready to help solve one of Germany’s most persistent headaches?

Nobody inside the DFB will expect him to walk straight in and dominate. At 23, with so little top-level experience, that would be unrealistic. What makes him so intriguing to Klopp, though, is not a single standout skill, but his range.

At Ingolstadt, coaches used him almost everywhere. Sabrina Wittmann, his strongest advocate there, trusted him on both flanks of the defence, even though his natural position is right-back in a back four. She also pushed him into central midfield and higher up as an attacking midfielder, operating in the half-spaces and drifting wide to link play.

That kind of tactical flexibility is gold dust for an international coach with limited training time.

His move to Elversberg nudged his game in a more defensive direction. During the promotion campaign he spent most of his minutes at right-back, tightening his positional play and timing in duels. This season, Wagner has increasingly dropped him into defensive midfield alongside Lukasz Poreba, where Keidel’s reading of the game and engine can dictate the rhythm without the spotlight.

For Klopp, though, the likely plan is clear: right-back.

It is the position that has haunted Germany since Philipp Lahm retired and Joshua Kimmich shifted permanently into central midfield. Hansi Flick and Julian Nagelsmann both searched for a convincing long-term answer and never found one.

Benjamin Henrichs and Ridle Baku had their chances. Josha Vagnoman was tested. Even Kimmich was dragged back to the flank at the 2026 World Cup in a bid to steady things. None of those experiments stuck. Each solution felt temporary, a patch rather than a pillar.

German football is still waiting for a right-back who can own that role in a back four for years, not months.

Now Klopp is prepared to see whether a player who cost €400,000, climbed from the 3. Liga and has only just introduced himself to the Bundesliga can be that man.

Perhaps, of all people, Felix Keidel is about to step into the vacancy no one else has truly claimed.