Nathaniel Brown may only have made his tenth international appearance against Greece. Even so, the 23-year-old Bayern Munich left-back was already one of the more experienced players in Germany's starting XI. Only Jonathan Tah and Joshua Kimmich have significantly more caps, while Karim Adeyemi and Felix Nmecha are only just ahead of Brown.
Before his first squad call-up, Germany coach Jürgen Klopp is likely to have had plenty of positional headaches. On the left side of defence, though, Brown seemed to offer a promising answer for both the short and long term. As expected, Klopp started him in his first two internationals, away to the Netherlands and at home to Greece. The problem was Brown failed to deliver. It was a similar story at Bayern Munich, where he has recently slipped behind Alphonso Davies in the pecking order.
Going forward, Brown showed glimpses in both internationals. His best moment came in the 1-1 draw against the Netherlands, when he teed up Karim Adeyemi's spectacularly missed big chance. Over the piece, though, Brown lacked penetration. In the disillusioning 1-0 defeat against Greece, for example, only one of his eight crosses reached a team-mate.
Defensively, the concerns were even greater. Brown struggled badly against the quick, direct Crysencio Summerville and Konstantinos Karetsas, and spaces kept opening up behind him. Brown also lost the direct duel with scorer Cody Gakpo for the late equaliser against the Netherlands.
Germany team: now Raum and Mittelstädt get their chance to impress
Like most of the players from the first squad, Brown also left the national team camp on Monday. Does he now have to worry about his regular place? In the two further internationals against Serbia on Thursday and in Greece on Sunday, David Raum and Maximilian Mittelstädt will get their chance to impress.
For the past few years, those two have been locked in a long-running battle for the left-back spot, until Brown made his debut in October 2025 and established himself as a regular in the spring. At the World Cup, Brown was first choice and one of the few bright spots in a poor Germany team. The reward was a €50 million move from Eintracht Frankfurt to Bayern Munich, where he found himself in a very promising position straight away in the summer.
His rival Alphonso Davies had endured a difficult spell by then. Having only just recovered from a cruciate ligament tear, the 25-year-old suffered a muscle bundle tear in the closing stages of the previous season. At the long-awaited home World Cup, Davies ultimately played only 16 minutes for Canada. He returned to Munich carrying another knock, initially trained on his own and managed only 66 minutes across all the friendlies.
Meanwhile, new signing Brown quickly played his way into the spotlight with a series of good performances and also showed his versatility. Because of personnel shortages in attack, Brown started in the No 10 role in the 2-1 Super Cup win against Borussia Dortmund and scored the decisive opening goal. Brown himself was even surprised by his unfamiliar positioning: "Especially in the first few games, I did think I would be used at left-back."
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Vincent Kompany's decision surprised not only Brown, but Klopp as well. "So now we finally have a left-back and then they play him as a No 10," Klopp complained during the match against VfB Stuttgart on Sat1. He was joking, of course, but there was probably at least a grain of truth in it. Once Bayern's attacking midfield injury problems finally eased, Brown returned to his preferred position and is now fighting the recovered Davies for minutes.
Brown started in the DFB Cup against VfL Osnabrück and in the Bundesliga against SV Elversberg, but after underwhelming displays he made way early for Davies on both occasions. Against Elversberg, Davies also helped spark the turnaround. In the Champions League opener against FK Bodö/Glimt, Brown spent the full game on the bench. Against Union Berlin, he came on only shortly before the end, after Davies had shone with two assists.
All told, the Canadian has already registered four goal contributions this season. Davies looks as physically sharp as he has for a long time, is edging back towards his top level and is regarded as one of the winners of the start of the season.
Now Brown has also hit a bump with the national team, while Davies, incidentally, is enjoying his delayed honeymoon. Because a trip straight after his wedding in the summer did not work out for scheduling reasons, he opted out of Canada's friendlies in this international window after consulting national team coach Jesse Marsch. On Monday, Davies shared a video on Instagram of a beach volleyball match on a palm-lined beach.