2026 FIFA World Cup · UEFA (Europe)Germany National Football Team
Die Mannschaft (The Team) / Nationalelf
Group E
Group standings update live during the tournament. All four teams play three group fixtures. Top two and the four best third-placed sides progress to the round of 32. See the full 12-group draw and all 104 fixtures on the World Cup hub.
| # | Team | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 4 | 6 | |
| 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 6 | |
| 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | |
| 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 1 |
Group-stage fixtures
26-man squad
Current squad as registered with FIFA. Tap any player with the “Profile” chip to open their full PicksIQ stat page, including season form at their club.
Goalkeepers
Defenders
Midfielders
How Germany qualified
Germany topped UEFA Group A in qualifying with five wins, one draw and no defeats, beating Northern Ireland, Slovakia and Luxembourg across six matches and scoring 19 goals while conceding three. The group was navigated with the kind of professional efficiency the post-2014 Mannschaft had lost — Kimmich captained from midfield, Musiala scored five goals across the campaign, and Wirtz's club-level form at Bayern transferred directly to the national side. The defining qualifying fixture was the 4-0 home win over Northern Ireland at the Volksparkstadion in Hamburg on 11 October 2025, which mathematically clinched qualification with two fixtures still to play. Musiala scored twice, Wirtz once, and substitute Niclas Füllkrug rounded off the score. Group A featured no marquee opposition, and Germany's underlying performance level remains the open question heading into the tournament. Germany enter Group E in 2026 with the kind of expectation that no longer feels automatic. The team has not progressed past the round of 16 at any World Cup since 2014, has been eliminated in the group stage at the past two tournaments, and arrives in Group E with Ecuador, Ivory Coast and Curaçao as the heavy seeded favourite. The federation's stated target — a tournament-defining target — is to reach the semi-finals.
Direct qualification with two matches to spare — Germany's first competent qualifying campaign since 2014.
Final group standings
| # | Team | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Germany Qualification for 2026 FIFA World Cup | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 19 | 3 | 16 |
| 2 | Northern Ireland Advance to play-offs | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 8 | 10 |
| 3 | Slovakia | 6 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 9 | 6 |
| 4 | Luxembourg | 6 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 20 | 3 |
Source: FIFA, UEFA
A short history
Germany are one of the three most successful nations in World Cup history alongside Brazil and Italy, with four titles (1954, 1974, 1990, 2014) and a tournament resumé that includes four runners-up finishes and four third-place finishes — records that no other federation has approached. The Deutscher Fußball-Bund was founded in 1900 and the senior team has competed under the names Germany, West Germany, East Germany and Saarland across various eras, with the unified post-1990 Germany inheriting the West German tournament history that defines the modern record book. The 1954 'Miracle of Bern' upset of Hungary, the 1974 title win on home soil with Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Müller, the 1990 title in Italy with Lothar Matthäus and Jürgen Klinsmann, and the 2014 title in Brazil with the most clinical tournament performance of the modern era — including the 7-1 semi-final demolition of the hosts at the Mineirão — are the four pillars of German tournament identity. Miroslav Klose's record-breaking 16th World Cup goal in that 7-1 win moved him past Ronaldo Nazário as the tournament's all-time leading scorer. Julian Nagelsmann was appointed head coach in September 2023 after Hansi Flick's exit, and has steadied a team that suffered consecutive group-stage exits at the 2018 and 2022 World Cups for the first time in modern German history. Joshua Kimmich is captain. The squad combines Bayern Munich's reliable core (Kimmich, Jamal Musiala, Florian Wirtz at Bayern from 2025) with younger creative talent — Wirtz especially — and Antonio Rüdiger of Real Madrid anchoring the back four. The Euro 2024 quarter-final exit to eventual champions Spain at the home tournament gave Nagelsmann the institutional support to push through the World Cup cycle.
Three games that defined the side
The 7-1 semi-final demolition of Brazil at the Mineirão in Belo Horizonte on 8 July 2014 is the most lopsided knockout-stage result in World Cup history and the single most defining moment of the modern German team. Five goals in 18 first-half minutes — Müller, Klose, Kroos twice, Khedira — completed the most catastrophic collapse a host nation has ever suffered. Klose's goal moved him past Ronaldo as the all-time World Cup top scorer. Germany went on to beat Argentina 1-0 in the final on a Mario Götze 113th-minute volley. The 1954 final against the heavily-favoured Hungary at the Wankdorf Stadium in Bern, with Hungary 2-0 up after eight minutes against a German side that had lost 8-3 to them in the group stage, remains the original World Cup miracle. West Germany came back to win 3-2 on a Helmut Rahn winner in the 84th minute. The result is considered the moment post-war West German national identity began to reconstitute itself. The consecutive group-stage exits at the 2018 World Cup in Russia (group-stage elimination by South Korea in the final fixture) and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar (eliminated by goal difference behind Japan and Spain) were the worst back-to-back tournament results in German football history. The 2024 Euros quarter-final exit to Spain in Stuttgart partially restored credibility, but the 2026 cycle is the moment the federation has set as the institutional reset target.
Tournament by tournament
| Year | Result | P | W-D-L | GF-GA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1954 | Champions Switzerland | 6 | 5-0-1 | 25-14 |
| 1974 | Champions West Germany | 7 | 6-0-1 | 13-4 |
| 1990 | Champions Italy | 7 | 5-2-0 | 15-5 |
| 2014 | Champions Brazil | 7 | 6-1-0 | 18-4 |
| 1966 | Runners-up England | 6 | 4-1-1 | 15-6 |
| 1982 | Runners-up Spain | 7 | 3-3-1 | 12-10 |
| 1986 | Runners-up Mexico | 7 | 3-2-2 | 8-7 |
| 2002 | Runners-up South Korea / Japan | 7 | 5-1-1 | 14-3 |
| 2006 | Third place Germany | 7 | 5-1-1 | 14-6 |
| 2010 | Third place South Africa | 7 | 5-0-2 | 16-5 |
| 2018 | Group stage Russia | 3 | 1-0-2 | 2-4 |
| 2022 | Group stage Qatar | 3 | 1-1-1 | 6-5 |
Goals at the finals
| Player | Goals | Tournaments |
|---|---|---|
| Miroslav Klose | 16 | 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 — all-time WC top scorer |
| Gerd Müller | 14 | 1970, 1974 |
| Jürgen Klinsmann | 11 | 1990, 1994, 1998 |
| Helmut Rahn | 10 | 1954, 1958 |
| Thomas Müller | 10 | 2010, 2014, 2018 |
Last 10 internationals
Friendlies, qualifying matches and confederation tournaments from the last twelve months. Results pulled live from API-Football.
| Date | Match | Score | Res |
|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Jun 26 | Germany vs Paraguay | 1-1 | D |
| 25 Jun 26 | Ecuador vs Germany | 2-1 | L |
| 20 Jun 26 | Germany vs Ivory Coast | 2-1 | W |
| 14 Jun 26 | Germany vs Curaçao | 7-1 | W |
| 6 Jun 26 | USA vs Germany | 1-2 | W |
| 31 May 26 | Germany vs Finland | 4-0 | W |
| 30 Mar 26 | Germany vs Ghana | 2-1 | W |
| 27 Mar 26 | Switzerland vs Germany | 3-4 | W |
| 17 Nov 25 | Germany vs Slovakia | 6-0 | W |
| 14 Nov 25 | Luxembourg vs Germany | 0-2 | W |