Tough break: World Cup unlucky charm Karl suffered an injury after the DFB training session

Lennart Karl Germany 2026

Germany defender Lennart Karl (18) suffered a serious muscle injury during Friday's official training session, ruling him out of the World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

According to Bild, Karl and several teammates stayed behind after Friday's main training session to put in some extra work, fine-tuning their preparations for Saturday's final World Cup warm-up match against co-hosts the USA.

The FC Bayern forward remained on the pitch with a small group of DFB players to work on his finishing. As he struck his final shot, Karl felt a sharp twinge in his adductors and knew straight away that something was wrong. Vice-captain Antonio Rüdiger (33) eventually helped him off the pitch and into the dressing room.

National team manager Julian Nagelsmann (38) hinted at a more serious injury shortly afterwards at his press conference, saying: "Unfortunately, Lenny got injured in training today. We'll have to wait and see what the outcome is. To be honest, it didn't look too good." A subsequent MRI scan confirmed the worst: a torn muscle fibre that rules him out of the World Cup.

Lennart Karl Germany 2026

Just like Lennart Karl, Serge Gnabry has suffered an unfortunate injury.

The national team does not regularly hold finishing drills after the main training session. During his press conference to announce the DFB squad, Nagelsmann explained that these exercises were why he had brought Karl's club-mate Jonas Urbig (22) to the USA as a "training goalkeeper": "The players want to spend another 45 minutes shooting after every training session; they're not always allowed to, but occasionally. And then it's good to be able to spread the workload across several people. That's why Jonas is deservedly part of the squad."

Bitterly ironic, then, that Bayern midfielder Serge Gnabry suffered a serious injury in mid-April during a similar session. The 30-year-old tore his adductor muscle in training, ending his season and ruling him out of the World Cup.

Gnabry, too, was injured not in a tackle but during a shooting drill, as Bayern coach Vincent Kompany explained at the time: "That was very unfortunate. It happened during a penalty shoot-out. It was really very, very unfortunate and took us all by surprise."

The German squad for the 2026 World Cup