"Kicker" ranking Gregor Kobel again best Bundesliga goalie - Joël Schmied also impresses

Nati goalkeeper Gregor Kobel secures first place in the "Kicker" ranking of Bundesliga goalkeepers.

The German football magazine "Kicker" has published its winter ranking, which is based on performances in the first half of the 2025/26 season.

Swiss international goalkeeper Gregor Kobel, who plays for Borussia Dortmund, has continued his great run. The 27-year-old has already topped the podium four times. Although Kobel missed out on the "world class" category, he did make it into the "international class". In the Bundesliga, only Péter Gulácsi from RB Leipzig and Oliver Baumann from Hoffenheim also made it into this category.

"So this time it's Gregor Kobel again. After his best placings in the years 2022 to 2024, the Dortmund player has recently lost out twice in the Kicker editorial team's assessment. Now he is once again at the top of the rankings after a spotless half-season, characterized by convincing performances in the Bundesliga and the Champions League. Garnished with good performances in the Swiss national team, where he equaled Yann Sommer's record of five consecutive games without conceding a goal, as well as in the DFB Cup, where he saved BVB from an even earlier elimination in the penalty shoot-out in Frankfurt (4:2)," the editorial team writes about Kobel.

It continues: "Apart from his unfortunate opening recently in Freiburg (1:1), which resulted in a red card for his team-mate Jobe Bellingham, the 28-year-old also showed improvement in his problem area, playing with the ball at his feet. The change in Borussia coach from Nuri Sahin to Niko Kovac and the resulting change in tactical involvement of the goalkeeper also seemed to help him."

Dayot Upamecano came out on top among the central defenders. Like Nico Schlotterbeck (Dortmund), Jonathan Tah (Bayern), Jeff Chabot (Stuttgart), Waldemar Anton (Dortmund) and Matthias Ginter (Freiburg), the Bayern professional was ranked in the "international class".

Schmied "national class"

Joël Schmied has also found a place in the specialist magazine's ranking of central defenders. The player from Bern is ranked 16th: "The Swiss is one of the surprises of the season. Schmied has been in Cologne since January 2025 and played a rather bumpy second half of the season in the 2nd division, but has clearly improved since promotion. The 27-year-old did not make any mistakes and was very stable, his top end speed of almost 35 km/h is his trump card. Schmied was injured in his only weaker game, the 3:4 against Frankfurt in November. The fact that things are no longer going well at FC also has to do with his absence."

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