Veteran Manuel Neuer will be first choice Germany goalkeeper for the Euro 2024 tournament, with Marc-Andre ter Stegen missing out again, according to dpa sources.
Coach Julian Nagelsmann made the decision three months ahead of the tournament in Germany after the team gathered for upcoming friendlies against France and the Netherlands.
Nagelsmann had said he would talk to all players about their planned role on Monday and Tuesday.
There has so far been no official confirmation but the issue may arise later Wednesday in a fan talk with Nagelsmann.
Bayern Munich's Neuer, 37, is back in the squad after missing all national team 2023 matches due to a lower leg fracture.
He has been Germany's number one at all World Cups and Euros since 2010 and is set for his 118th cap on Saturday in Lyon against France.
Barcelona's ter Stegen has been a national team rival since 2012 and has 38 caps. The 31-year-old had hoped to finally be named first choice for the home Euros.
Neuer won the 2014 World Cup while ter Stegen won the 2017 Confederations Cup with a young team without Neuer and many others.
Neur has kept an impressive 49 clean sheets and lost only 19 games in his long national team career, and his presence as a team leader could help Germany getting some badly needed stability at the back.
Nagelsmann has said that Real Madrid's Antonio Rüdiger and Jonathan Tah will be his centre backs in the friendlies, and also at the Euros if they do well on Saturday and on Tuesday against the Dutch in Frankfurt.
The decision, after experiments with other players and the likes of Mats Hummels and Niklas Süle now dropped, was welcomed by Rüdiger on Wednesday.
"You can deal with each other in a completely different way during training and have different conversations," Rüdiger said.
The 66-times capped defender praised Tah as "outstanding" and said there is "no better player in the Bundesliga" in this position at the moment.
Rüdiger said that Nagelsmann has told him to be a leader at the back and he pledged that the team will show "a reaction concerning the basics" from a poor 2023 with just three victories from 11 games and defeats against Turkey and Austria in the final two games.
"We can talk about tactics and everything but there must be a readiness. And of course a result," he said.
Germany also underperformed in group stage exits at the last two World Cup and a last 16 elimination at the last Euros but Rüdiger rather wants to look ahead at the home event in summer where Germany face Scotland, Hungary and Switzerland in the group stage.
"The tournaments were the way they were. We have to be positive. We are facing a home Euros. We have a good squad, good lads. We know what we have to do," Rüdiger said.
