Head coach Joachim Low believes Manchester City forward Leroy Sane is now ready to star for Germany.
Sane was surprisingly left out of Die Mannschaft’s World Cup squad by Low last summer despite playing a key role for City in the Premier League and the reigning champions went on to crash out in the group stages.
The 23-year-old was brought back into the fray for the UEFA Nations League before Christmas and Low thinks he has improved enough this season to be considered a main man in their team.
Germany kick-off their preparations for Sunday’s Euro 2020 qualifier with Holland by playing Serbia in a friendly on Wednesday.
Low told the official German FA website: “His development has been good in both the national team and (for) Manchester City.
“He has put in some great performances, but what is more important to me is that he has taken a big step forward.
“He has really mastered his jobs on the pitch. He has incredible skills and has brought them to the pitch in the last six months.
“Leroy still has huge potential and can become an extremely important player for the Germany national team.”
Germany are a side in transition following their disappointing World Cup and Nations League campaign, with technical director Oliver Bierhoff admitting they are “building a new team”.
Low said of the clash with Serbia in Wolfsburg: “We want to prepare all the players for the game against the Netherlands, which is certainly the game that has the most importance.
“We also have the game against Serbia and we will have to play in a certain way as Serbia are technically strong.
“The game in Wolfsburg is important, the training sessions are important, but everything is looking forward to Sunday and the start of the qualifiers.
“I have to see how fresh the players are in training and then talk to them in the evening. I have to take into account how much the players have been playing as well.”
Serbia are without injured stars Aleksandar Kolarov, Dusan Tadic, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Nemanja Matic.
Coach Mladen Krstajic told the official Serbian FA website: “Injuries are an integral part of football, we have a list of 27 players, if we exclude a few of them who have problems with injuries, there remains a sufficient number of those for which we count for a match with Germany.
“We do not have much time to get ready, we have one training here, in Wolfsburg one more and then we play a match.”
