Netherlands vs Germany prediction and predicted line-ups: Xavi and Klopp make their debuts. Nations League, Thursday 24 September

Two head coaches in charge for the first time, and the 49th meeting of two old rivals. On Thursday 24 September Xavi Hernández's Netherlands host Jürgen Klopp's Germany at the Johan Cruijff ArenA in Amsterdam on the opening night of the Nations League. Xavi, appointed on 12 August, is the first foreign coach of the Netherlands since Ernst Happel; Klopp, 59, succeeded Julian Nagelsmann. Both sides went out of the World Cup on the same day, 29 June, in the round of 32 and on penalties.

Netherlands vs Germany: kick-off time and venue

Netherlands vs Germany kicks off at 19:45 UK time (20:45 CEST) on Thursday 24 September at the Johan Cruijff ArenA in Amsterdam, which holds 50,767 according to UEFA. It is Group A2 of League A in the Nations League, with Serbia and Greece, who meet in Belgrade at the same time: for that game, our call is no more than four goals, confidence 7 out of 10. The top two reach the quarter-finals in March 2027, while the bottom side goes down to League B or into a play-off, and third place can also mean a play-off. Spain's Alejandro Hernández Hernández, who refereed Xavi's Barcelona, takes charge, with Carlos del Cerro Grande on VAR. There will be a minute's silence before kick-off for Bartina Koeman, wife of former Netherlands coach Ronald Koeman, who has died aged 65.

Team news

Xavi has lost Roma's Donyell Malen and Justin Kluivert to injury and called up Mexx Meerdink and Guus Til. Frenkie de Jong, Matthijs de Ligt, Xavi Simons and Jerdy Schouten are also missing, while Memphis Depay and Wout Weghorst were left out by choice. Arsenal's Jurriën Timber, who trained separately on Monday and Tuesday by agreement with his club, is available: on Wednesday 23 September Xavi said the whole squad is fit. He will tell his players the team only 90 minutes before kick-off, and Virgil van Dijk stays captain. On Monday 21 September Xavi promised that “we will play with intensity, with passion, with a good rhythm”.

Klopp named 44 players split into two groups, including 16 who are uncapped. The first group plays the Netherlands and Greece, so Florian Wirtz and Nick Woltemade are not involved: they are in the second group, for Serbia and Greece. Lennart Karl was swapped for Barcelona's Karim Adeyemi to manage his workload, not because of an injury. Deniz Undav and Leroy Sané were not selected.

Netherlands vs Germany predicted line-ups

Two Dutch previews, one from Tuesday and one from Wednesday morning, both written before Timber was cleared, name the same side: Netherlands (4-3-3): Verbruggen; Dumfries, Van Hecke, Van Dijk, Van de Ven; Veerman, Gravenberch, Reijnders; Summerville, Brobbey, Gakpo. Timber could come in for Van Hecke in the middle or for Dumfries on the right. Frimpong is still in the running on the right of the attack, and another prediction has Koopmeiners in for Veerman, who is back in the squad after two years. Verbruggen is ahead of Roefs in goal.

There are no two identical predictions for Germany, but nine names appear in all of them: ter Stegen, confirmed by Klopp, who will be playing at his club ground as he is on loan at Ajax from Barcelona; Tah, Schlotterbeck and Brown in defence; Kimmich and Nmecha in midfield; Schade, Havertz and Adeyemi in attack. That leaves two questions. At right-back Freiburg's Treu, one of the uncapped players, is given a good chance of starting, with Vagnoman the alternative and Inter's Yann Aurel Bisseck third choice. And the shape: a 4-2-3-1 with Musiala behind Havertz, or a 4-3-3 with Amiri and Kimmich as the only holding midfielder. The official line-ups are released about an hour before kick-off.

Head-to-head and form

The 48 previous meetings have produced 169 goals. Germany are unbeaten in the last four: 1-1 in a friendly in Amsterdam on 29 March 2022, 2-1 in Frankfurt on 26 March 2024, when Veerman scored for the Netherlands after four minutes before Mittelstädt and Füllkrug replied, then 2-2 in Amsterdam on 10 September 2024 and 1-0 in Munich on 14 October 2024, both in the Nations League. The last Dutch win was 4-2 in Hamburg on 6 September 2019, in qualifying for Euro 2020.

At the World Cup the Netherlands drew 2-2 with Japan, beat Sweden 5-1, with Brian Brobbey scoring in the 5th and 17th minutes, and won 3-1 against Tunisia. In the round of 32 they drew 1-1 with Morocco, Gakpo scoring before Diop's 91st-minute equaliser, and lost the shoot-out after misses from Kluivert, Timber and Summerville. Germany beat Curaçao 7-1 and Ivory Coast 2-1, lost 2-1 to Ecuador and went out to Paraguay, 1-1 and 4-3 on penalties: they had never lost a World Cup shoot-out before.

Our Netherlands vs Germany prediction

Our call is at least two goals, confidence 7 out of 10. All eight of the two sides' World Cup games had at least two goals, and so did four of the last five meetings between them; across the whole fixture the average is more than three goals a game. The other games of the round are in our matchday one preview.

Every game with our calls is on the Nations League page. The record of settled calls is in the results history, and our calls on individual players are in player predictions.