Germany have been forced to remove a player from their Nations League squad listing – because he already plays for another country.
Julian Nagelsmann named a 23-man squad for fixtures against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Hungary, with Germany looking to secure their place on top of Nations League Group A3.
There were a number of surprises, with Manchester City goalkeeper Stefan Ortega handed his first call-up.
Kai Havertz is also included despite suffering a head injury in Arsenal‘s 1-0 defeat to Inter Milan, while Borussia Dortmund’s Felix Nmecha has been recalled after an absence of 14 months from the national squad.
But fans were much more surprised by a different name who was included on the initial squad list – who isn’t actually German.
Dario Sits is a senior international for Latvia, and has scored one goal in his two appearances having been a regular in the nation’s youth setup.
But the 20-year-old, who is currently on loan at Dutch second tier side Helmond Sport from Parma, was part of a squad graphic on the official DFB website.
The graphic even showed Sits wearing a Germany shirt along with confirmation that he had been selected.
The graphic was swiftly removed from the website, with the DFB blaming a technical error on their database for the error.
Sits has never played for a German club, though did feature for Latvia’s U21 side against Germany – which may be where the DFB collected data for the striker.
The Latvian Football Association provided a humorous response to the error on their official Twitter account, writing: “Hey @DFB_Team, we appreciate your interest, but Dario Sits’ flight is already booked to Riga.”
Image: Twitter/@DarioSits
Germany have won three and drawn one of their four Nations League matches to date, scoring 10 goals.
Two points from their final two games will ensure they finish on top of their group ahead of Netherlands, who also play Bosnia and Herzegovina and Hungary in their last matches.
Julian Nagelsmann’s side are already guaranteed to qualify for the Nations League play-offs as at least runners-up, as even though Netherlands and Hungary are each five points behind them with two games to play, they both cannot make up the deficit.