Lehmann return unlikely: Germany coach

Jens Lehmann’s dream of returning to international football and playing in next year’s World Cup looks unlikely to be fulfilled, Germany goalkeeping coach Andreas Koepke said Monday.

“It is unnecessary to really think about it,” Koepke, who coaches the national team’s goalkeepers, told the Stuttgart Zeitung.

“It would send out the wrong signal to our younger goalkeepers.”

Former Arsenal goalkeeper Lehmann, 39, won the last of his 61 caps against Spain in the 1-0 Euro 2008 final defeat in Vienna and signed for Bundesliga side Stuttgart soon after.

And he announced his international retirement last August.

But having signed a year’s extension to his contract on Friday, which will keep him in the Bundesliga until the summer of 2010, Lehmann has said he would like to resume his international career.

“I said after Euro 2008 that there should be no plans with me in mind, because I will only play on one more year,” said Lehmann.

“But that situation has changed now. If there is a need for me and I am good enough, that would be an incentive for me.”

But while neither Leverkusen’s Rene Adler nor Hanover’s Robert Enke have made Germany’s Number One shirt their own is his absence, Lehmann has been far from flawless this season.

He was at fault in his side’s 2-1 win at Bochum on Saturday when he caught a corner, but then accidentally carried the ball over his own goal-line.