Felix Keidel: Jürgen Klopp's Versatile Solution for Germany

Jürgen Klopp promised a reset. Now he’s proving he meant it.

When he sat down for his first press conference as Germany head coach, Klopp stripped away any sense of entitlement. Almost nobody, he warned, could feel safe in the DFB setup. Only form, performance and sheer work rate would decide who pulled on the shirt. No reputations. No nostalgia.

He also revealed the size of the rebuild. A 57-man shortlist for his first games in charge, packed with familiar names and, crucially, players the national team had never touched before. After three failed World Cup campaigns, Germany needed more than a tweak. It needed new faces, new energy, and a break from the old scars.

One of those new faces, astonishingly, could be Felix Keidel.

From 3. Liga to the national team radar

Late on Tuesday night, Bild broke the news: 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 one tried to dress it up as anything other than what it is – a shock.

Keidel has played just three times in the Bundesliga. He has barely dipped his toes into top-flight football. And yet his name is suddenly in the same conversation as the national team.

His journey has not been glamorous, but it has been relentless.

Keidel’s story starts at FC Ingolstadt. He joined the club’s U19s in 2012 and climbed through every youth level until he reached the first team in the summer of 2022. Once there, he didn’t lurk on the fringes for long. At just 20, he established himself as a regular in the 3. Liga side, racking up 37 league appearances in his first full season, chipping in with one goal and four assists.

Then came the leap.

In 2025, Elversberg – still smarting from narrowly missing out on promotion against 1. FC Heidenheim – moved decisively. They bought Keidel out of his Ingolstadt contract for around €400,000. It was hardly a headline-grabbing fee, but it turned into one of the most important pieces in their rebuild.

Again, Keidel barely needed a settling-in period. Under coach Vincent Wagner he quickly became a fixture, playing 25 league games, starting 13 of them, and helping drive SVE’s remarkable promotion push. By the end of the season, the club from Saarland were celebrating a sensational rise to the Bundesliga, and Keidel had climbed from Germany’s third tier to the top division in just over two years.

This season, he has finally had his first taste of the big stage. Three Bundesliga appearances – against Leverkusen, Gladbach and, most recently, Bayern – brought his first top-flight goal. A DFB Cup outing against MSV Duisburg added two assists to his record. That modest set of games has been enough for Klopp to pick up the phone.

The message is clear: if you perform, you’re in the conversation, regardless of where you come from.

The Swiss army knife Klopp has been missing?

The question now is not whether Keidel deserves a look. Klopp has already answered that. The real issue is what, exactly, the Germany coach sees in him.

The answer lies in one word: versatility.

At Ingolstadt, Keidel became the kind of player coaches love and opponents hate. Under Sabrina Wittmann, his biggest advocate at FCI, he was used almost everywhere. Both full-back positions? He played them. Central midfield? He played there too. He even operated higher up as an attacking midfielder, drifting into the half-spaces and acting as a playmaker.

His natural position is right-back in a back four, but “natural” barely covers it. He has shown he can adapt, adjust and plug gaps all over the pitch.

His move to Elversberg nudged him slightly back towards his defensive roots. During the promotion season, he was used mainly at right-back. This year, Wagner has started to pull him inside more often, deploying him as a defensive midfielder alongside Lukasz Poreba. That shift has only underlined his tactical intelligence and positional awareness.

For Klopp, the picture is obvious. In a tight squad, a player who can fill multiple roles at a high tempo is gold. Yet there is one role in particular where Keidel’s profile screams “opportunity”.

Germany’s right-back riddle

Right-back has been a problem position for Germany ever since Philipp Lahm retired and Joshua Kimmich moved permanently into central midfield. Neither Hansi Flick nor Julian Nagelsmann found a convincing, long-term solution.

They tried a carousel of options. Benjamin Henrichs and Ridle Baku at RB Leipzig. Josha Vagnoman at Stuttgart. Even a temporary rewind with Kimmich shuffled back to the right at the 2026 World Cup. None of those experiments stuck. Most were shelved after short runs, leaving the position unsettled and exposed.

The national team has been crying out for a dependable, high-quality right-back in a back four. Someone who can defend aggressively, offer width, and still contribute to the buildup without needing constant cover.

This is where Keidel comes into focus.

He is not arriving with a glittering CV or a stack of Champions League nights behind him. He is arriving with something else: momentum, adaptability and the sense that his ceiling is still a long way off. Klopp is unlikely to throw him straight in as a guaranteed starter, but the intention is clear. Keidel is being looked at first and foremost as a right-back option.

Whether he is already at the level to shape games for the DFB team is an open question. The leap from Elversberg to international football is enormous. But Klopp has built his career on backing players who run, fight and think the game quickly. Keidel ticks those boxes.

German football has been searching for an answer on the right side of its defence for years. Now a 23-year-old who climbed from the 3. Liga to the Bundesliga in just over two seasons has been handed a chance to solve it.

Of all players, could Felix Keidel be the one who finally closes that gap?