2023-09-11 09:11:35
National soccer team
“Decision inevitable” – DFB dismisses national coach Flick
As of: 11:11 a.m. | Reading time: 4 minutes
Hansi Flick is no longer national football coach
Hansi Flick is no longer national coach. The German Football Association separated from the 58-year-old on Sunday, and the association drew the consequences after the 4-1 defeat against Japan in Wolfsburg on Saturday. Lars Gartenschläger from the WELT sports editorial team classifies the personnel decision.
For the first time in the history of German football, a national coach is fired. The DFB is parting ways with the hapless Hansi Flick after the embarrassing performance against Japan. Sports director Rudi Völler speaks in detail about the end.
The DFB has fired national coach Hansi Flick. This happened at the suggestion of DFB President Bernd Neuendorf. The 1:4 against Japan the evening before in Wolfsburg was one defeat too many for the hapless Flick. For the international match against runner-up world champion France on Tuesday in Dortmund, sports director Rudi Völler, 42-year-old Hannes Wolf (sports director for young talent, training and development at the DFB) and 35-year-old Sandro Wagner (assistant coach of the U20 at the DFB) will be the interim solution ) sitting on the bench. The DFB emphasizes that this is a unique constellation.
Favorite to succeed Flick at the German Football Association is according to information from BILD the former Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann. The 36-year-old was chased away from FC Bayern and is still contractually bound to the Munich team. It’s all a question of money. Several names are being traded, but the only thing that has been clear in public opinion since Saturday evening is that Flick is no longer the right one.
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“The committees agreed that the senior men’s national team needed new impetus after recent disappointing results. With a view to the European Championships in our own country, we need a spirit of optimism and confidence. For me personally, it is one of the most difficult decisions of my time in office so far. But sporting success is the top priority for the DFB. “The decision was therefore unavoidable,” said Neuendorf.
Nine months before the home European Championships in 2024, the association has to look for a new coach in one of the deepest sporting crises in its history. At the end of 2022, the DFB selection failed in the preliminary round of the World Cup – even after a defeat against Japan.
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Flick took over the national team from Joachim Löw after the 2021 European Championship and won the first eight games, albeit against second-class opponents at best. In Qatar, the DFB selection deserved to be thrown out after the games against Japan (1:2), Spain (1:1) and Costa Rica (4:2), Flick was unable to turn the mood around in the last few months.
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“I think we are doing well and I am the right coach.” That was the sentence from Flick, who will stay in Wolfsburg from this weekend, when the deep problems, the cracks and the desolate state of the DFB selection became clear, as was the case with the disastrous preliminary round exit at the World Cup in Qatar nine months ago. At that time, the DFB had stuck with Flick, but nothing had improved since then – on the contrary.
The embarrassing performance on Saturday evening in Wolfsburg against Japan was the third defeat in a row; the national team had last played so unsuccessfully almost 40 years ago. Flick had changed his team again, contrary to his announcement that he wanted to find his “core team” for the home tournament. A new tactic with Joshua Kimmich as a central right-back in the build-up to the game went completely wrong. Flick suffered his heaviest defeat in his 25th international match.
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The expulsion is a first in the 123-year history of the DFB. None of Flick’s ten predecessors were fired by the association. Otto Nerz, the first head coach at the head of the DFB selection from 1927, was highly praised as “representative for the national team” after the Olympic defeat in 1936 and was succeeded by his assistant Sepp Herberger.
Völler in particular is now required
Sports director Völler had already avoided making a clear commitment to Flick after the defeat against Japan. “We should all reflect a little and think about what happens next. Let’s see,” Völler said. Flick led a public training session on Sunday in Wolfsburg. The task force hastily installed after the World Cup with the grandees around Völler, Matthias Sammer, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Neuendorf and DFL boss Hans-Joachim Watzke is said to have joined forces at least in part on Sunday. The 1:4 against Japan was another step back, at least.
In any case, Völler sees the expulsion as a necessary consequence of the sporting misery. “The Japan game clearly showed us that we can no longer progress in this situation,” he said on Sunday afternoon. The DFB had to “act responsibly” after the recent low point. Although Flick has “worn himself out” in the past few months, he has not managed to turn things around for the better.
Völler admitted that this was “not an easy moment” for him. “I joined the DFB in February to support Hansi Flick in all my ways, to support him so that he can be successful in sport,” he said. The 63-year-old outlined what will happen next after the France game on Tuesday. “The most urgent task will then be to hire a national coach who will quickly realign our team and prepare it for the big European Championship tournament next year, from which we all hope that there will be positive impulses for German football and also for our entire country “said Völler. The new head coach should lead the national team back to its previous top level in the long term.
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