After the change of national coach at the DBB, Dennis Schröder is not sure whether he will continue as captain of the team. However, in view of the successes, he is optimistic.
World Champion Dennis Schröder expects to continue leading the German basketball team as captain under the new national coach Alex Mumbru. “We haven’t talked about it, but I think so. We did quite well with me as captain,” Schröder said in the Braunschweiger Zeitung about an initial personal conversation with the Spanish successor to successful coach Gordon Herbert.
The conversation was very “very positive,” reported Schröder: “He doesn’t want to change everything, but he wants to try a few things to get us in the right situation. It was also important to me that we make a few adjustments.” At the Olympics in Paris, the national team, according to Schröder, “sometimes didn’t react well enough to the opponents’ style of play” in the games they lost.
Germany missed out on a medal at the Summer Olympics after losing to hosts France in the semi-finals and to Serbia in the bronze medal match. Schröder is now hoping that there will be no personnel changes ahead of the European Championships in Latvia, Finland, Cyprus and Poland (August 27 to September 14, 2025) next year.
“Our group is a golden generation and should stay together for as long as possible. Besides, we would have quit with two defeats in a row. And that can’t really be the case, that’s not how we wanted to approach things,” said the 31-year-old.
Germany will play their first game under Mumbru on November 22 in the European Championship qualifier in Sweden, with the 45-year-old Catalan’s home debut following three days later, also against the Scandinavians in Heidelberg. The NBA stars around Schröder will traditionally be absent during this international match window, and only a few professionals are expected from the EuroLeague clubs such as Alba Berlin and Bayern Munich.