Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Müller and the Top 10 players to watch at UEFA Euro 2020
With UEFA Euro 2020 starting this week, bundesliga.com wants you to pick your Dream Bundesliga XI, while we point out our Top 10 to watch this summer.
The Bundesliga will have the second-highest number of players of any league in the world at UEFA Euro 2020, with 91 who play their club football in Germany in line to feature at this month's tournament.
Of these 91, bundesliga.com has picked out a Top 10 you need to keep your eyes on over the coming month while we're asking YOU to pick your Dream XI of Bundesliga talent on show.
Vote for your Dream XI below!
After making your vote, read about the 10 players you need to keep a particularly close eye on during this summer's Euro 2020 tournament...
Robert Lewandowski
Country: Poland (118 caps/66 goals)
Club: Bayern Munich
Position: Striker
Poland may not be betting favourites to secure their first piece of silverware since winning Olympic Gold in 1972, but with the best striker in the world in their ranks, anything is possible.
Robert Lewandowski plundered a barely fathomable 48 goals from just 40 games in all competitions for Bayern in 2020/21, surpassing Gerd Müller's 49-year-old single season Bundesliga record in the process.
Poland's all-time record goalscorer with 66 since his debut in 2008, Lewy is also this season's runaway European Golden Shoe winner and the current World Player of the Year. Group E opponents Spain, Sweden and Slovakia will be on high alert.
Watch: Lewandowski's 41 Bundesliga goals in 20/21!
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Thomas Müller
Country: Germany (100 caps/38 goals)
Club: Bayern
Position: Forward
Set to play his first competitive games for Germany in more than two years once the tournament gets underway, 31-year-old Müller has aged like a fine wine during his international hiatus, setting a single season record for assists last year (21) and adding another 18 this term.
The self-styled Raumdeuter - or space interpreter - has an unrivalled ability to unpick opposition defences with his movement and understanding of the game. Germany are in the "Group of Death" alongside reigning world and European champions in France and Portugal, but with Müller in their ranks, they have every chance.
Dani Olmo
Country: Spain (11 caps/3 goals)
Club: RB Leipzig
Position: Attacking midfielder
Less established than the aforementioned Bayern pair, Dani Olmo nonetheless looks poised to make a significant impact with Spain. The RB Leipzig man tends to operate through the middle for his club - whom he helped to a runners-up spot behind Bayern this season - but he starts on the left flank for his country.
His positional shift has garnered results. For a player who assisted 12 goals in all competitions for Leipzig last term, Olmo has readily gone from maker to taker with Spain, scoring in their last two games - FIFA World Cup qualifying victories over Georgia and Kosovo - and now has a goal involvement every 160 minutes for la Furia Roja.
Jadon Sancho
Country: England (18 caps/3 goals)
Club: Borussia Dortmund
Position: Winger
Simply one of the brightest talents in world football, there was a niggling doubt that Jadon Sancho had gone somewhat under the radar among the English footballing fraternity - especially when Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher left him out of their squads on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football. They should simply tune into the Bundesliga more often.
In the last two years, Sancho has scored 36 goals and created 40 more in all competitions for Borussia Dortmund. Street football skills honed alongside Reiss Nelson as children in South London have been fused with a level of tactical knowledge only German football knows how to instil. Everyone is talking about Harry Kane, but let Sancho off the leash, and England could go all the way.
Watch: Sancho's best moments with Borussia
Manuel Neuer
Country: Germany (98 caps)
Club: Bayern
Position: Goalkeeper
If Lewandowski, Sancho and Co. are paragons in their positions, Manuel Neuer can perhaps go one better: it's hard to argue against the Bayern and Germany captain as the greatest goalkeeper of all time after he underpinned his club's sextuple of Bundesliga, DFB Cup, DFL and UEFA Supercups, UEFA Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup over the last year.
A sweeper-keeper par excellence, Neuer also has 43 clean sheets for his country. He may face incredible firepower in France's Kylian Mbappe and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo in Group F, but they should be just as fearful as he is at the prospect of facing off.
Benjamin Pavard
Country: France (33 caps/2 goals)
Club: Bayern
Position: Right-back
Benjamin Pavard is one of four Bayern players in France's squad, alongside Lucas Hernandez, Kingsley Coman and Corentin Tolisso, and arguably the most important. Coman offers fantastic attacking verve, but his place in the side isn't quite as assured as full-backs Pavard and Hernandez.
That pair are tasked with similar duties by Didier Deschamps, with defending their primary remit. Pavard certainly figures to keep up that end of the bargain having won an average of 10 tackles per game in 2020/21, but he retains that extra flair for the spectacular which saw him score the goal of the tournament at against Argentina at the World Cup in 2018.
Andre Silva
Country: Portugal (38 caps/16 goals)
Club: Eintracht Frankfurt
Position: Striker
Lewandowski was the runaway top scorer in the Bundesliga last season with his 41 goals, but his nearest challenger was Andre Silva, the Eintracht Frankfurt sharp-shooter who actually finished the campaign with one more (28) than Dortmund goal-fiend and Player of the Season, Erling Haaaland (27).
Indeed, only Lewandowski, Lionel Messi and Ronaldo outscored the striker in the European Golden Shoe race, and if 16 goals in 38 caps - 11 of them off the bench - don't persuade you, then allow Ronaldo himself to remove any doubt.
"When I retire, Portugal will be in good hands because they have already found a great striker: Andre Silva," he told Gazzetta dello Sport.
Peter Gulacsi
Country: Hungary (37 caps)
Club: Leipzig
Position: Goalkeeper
Hungary may be the lowest ranked team in the aforementioned Group of Death alongside Germany, France and Portugal, but a Bundesliga influence runs through the spine of the team and Leipzig goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi may well be the best of them.
He and Willi Orban would have been joined by talented clubmate Dominik Szoboszlai if not for the midfielder's groin injury, but Marco Rossi's men won't be too worried about being kept on the back foot: Gulacsi kept a league-best 15 clean sheets last season, as Leipzig conceded a league-lowest 32 goals.
Watch: Oliver Kahn compares Gulacsi and Neuer
Andrej Kramaric
Country: Croatia (53 caps/14 goals)
Club: Hoffenheim
Position: Forward
Müller may be a unique proposition in world football, but Andrej Kramaric occupies similar positions for Hoffenheim, happy to play up front, as a second striker, deeper in midfield as a No.10, or drifting in off the flanks.
Some of the Croatia squad who made the final of the last World Cup, such as Luka Modric and Ivan Perisic, may be beginning to enter the autumn of their careers, but Kramaric is firmly in his prime. His 25 goals and six assists in all competitions last season were plundered at a rate of one every 89 minutes - for a side who only finished 11th - and Croatia should give him plenty of playing time if they want to repeat such a run.
Sasa Kalajdzic
Country: Austria (5 caps/3 goals)
Club: VfB Stuttgart
Position: Striker
The least established player on this list, but by no means the least exciting, Sasa Kalajdzic lit up VfB Stuttgart's first campaign back in the top flight, scoring 16 goals as Die Schwaben secured a ninth-place finish.
The tallest player in the league at 6'6", Kalajdzic's late spurt means that he grew up needing other solutions, and he retains the touch and technique of a much smaller player. Austria have taken notice, and his goal ratio of one every 94 minutes for them means they simply aren't sweating on the availability of Shanghai Port's former Werder Bremen forward Marko Arnautovic.
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