Joachim Löw has left Shkodran Mustafi out of his Germany squad for the international break, replacing him with Matias Ginter and Marvin Plattenhardt.

Over the international break, Germany will play a couple of a big name friendlies. First they’ll face Spain on March 23rd, then Brazil on March 27th. You’d expect nothing less from a side with aspirations to defend their world champion status this summer.

Löw announced his squad last week, and unsurprisingly Mesut Özil got his usual call up. Arsenal teammate Mustafi, however, was a notable absentee. Considering this is one of the last chances for the German manager to test his side before the summer, that’s a bit of a blow to the 25-year-old’s World Cup hopes.

https://twitter.com/DFB_Team_EN/status/974627108612866052

In all, this means Mustafi will only play a total of 36 minutes for his country between last summer’s Confederations Cup and this June.

Of course, the exclusion could have something to do with Mustafi’s recent injury problems. He came off in the 73rd minute of Arsenal’s last Premier League match, and was only just passed fit for the second leg of the last-16 Europa League tie against AC Milan.

He did then play the full 90 minutes on Thursday though, and get a break at the weekend. It doesn’t seem like there’s really any need for Germany to leave him out.

From the looks of things, he’ll have to work hard until the end of the season to change Löw’s mind.