The 1000th international match of the national soccer team should become a symbol for peace. As the German Football Association confirmed after a long planning phase, the selection of national coach Hansi Flick will play their next test game on the way to the home European Championship on June 12 against Ukraine.
The venue for the symbolic game is the Bremen Weser Stadium, where no international match has taken place since 2012. The kick-off time is still open. Most recently, there had been calls for international matches to start earlier.
The other two games for the international game window after the end of the season in the Bundesliga were also set. On June 16th there will be a showdown with Robert Lewandowski’s Poland in Warsaw. Another four days later there is a test against Colombia in Gelsenkirchen. These two games will start at 8:45 p.m. due to the agreements with UEFA.
Further dates for the DFB team are pending
The program for the rest of the year, including friendlies in September, possibly against vice world champions France in Dortmund and a trip to the USA in October, has not yet been announced. In November, among other things, a test is planned in Austria. It will be particularly exciting for Flick on December 2, when the groups for the EM 2024 will be drawn in Hamburg, with host Germany as head of Group A and games in Munich (June 14), Stuttgart (June 19) and Frankfurt ( 23rd June).
Germany played against Ukraine for the last time in the Nations League in November 2020, long before Russia attacked the country under ex-national coach Joachim Löw. In Leipzig, after several corona cases, the opponents made it 3-1 through goals from Timo Werner (2) and Leroy Sané. Germany has not lost any of their eight games against Ukraine (five wins, three draws).
Bremen is a sign of the football-political rapprochement. Also because of the legal dispute over the assumption of police costs in the Hanseatic city with the German Football League, no international match had taken place there for more than a decade.
