Manuel Neuer

Manuel Neuer is the most influential goalkeeper of his era — the architect of the sweeper-keeper role that redefined the position globally. His ability to act as an auxiliary defender, reading through-balls and intercepting far beyond his area, transformed how clubs and nations approach goalkeeping. A Champions League winner and 2014 World Cup winner with Germany, he spent his peak years at Bayern Munich after arriving from Schalke. Now 40, he is at the end of his career, but his presence in the squad carries enormous symbolic and technical weight, and Julian Nagelsmann must decide how much he still trusts those reflexes under tournament pressure.