Nia Künzer was repeatedly asked about this one topic, which was no surprise, because it was a very pressing question: Who will be the new national coach of the German women’s national team? “We have done our homework,” replied the director of the German Football Association (DFB), for example, or: “We will comment on it when the time comes.” Various names were traded: Stefan Kuntz, Emma Hayes, Jill Ellis – women, men, German and international coaches. But there was no speculation about the right candidate, that has been said since Friday afternoon.
On International Women’s Day, the DFB announced that Christian Wück would be the new national coach after the Olympics, without specifying the length of the contract. The 50-year-old is the successor to Horst Hrubesch, who took over the team on an interim basis for the second time since 2018 after the turbulent separation from Martina Voss-Tecklenburg in autumn 2023. Hrubesch qualified for the Summer Games in Paris in February – after which a new chapter will begin. After Hrubesch and Gero Bisanz (1982 to 1996), Wück is only the third man to take sporting responsibility for the DFB women.
“Christian Wück convinced us with his passion, expertise and his targeted and very clear concept,” Künzer is quoted in the press release. Your description of Wück pretty much corresponds to a wish list for DFB coaches: develop players and make them better individually, be communicative, convey a winning mentality, form a team from individual personalities. The 44-year-old said it was also important to the association that talents were introduced to the selection: “He’s the right person for that. The overall package was convincing for us.”
Maren Meinert will be the new assistant coach. The 50-year-old scored the 1-1 equalizer against Sweden in the 2003 World Cup final before Künzer scored the golden goal. As a coach, Meinert has won two U20 World Cup titles and three U19 European Championships. The second assistant position is to be filled “promptly”. This makes it clear that Britta Carlson and Thomas Nörenberg are also quitting. “Christian Wück is a proven expert and he speaks the language of the players,” said DFB President Bernd Neuendorf. “I am convinced that he is the right person to lead our team into the future after the Olympics.”
For Wück it is the first coaching job in the women’s sector, his first tournament could be the European Championships 2025 in Switzerland. “When the request came, I didn’t hesitate for long,” said Wück. Taking over the DFB women is “one of the most exciting and responsible tasks in German football.”
With the U17, Wück relied on the so-called German virtues – and won the European Championships and World Cup
The DFB didn’t have to dig much into its archives to find images for this candidate’s work. Wück won the U17 juniors as European champions in June 2023 and made them world champions in December. In both finals, France was defeated on penalties. The attributes that stood out were those that were probably on a second DFB wish list because they were sometimes missing from the adult teams – both women and men: passion, resilience, commitment, determination, solidarity. Wück considers these so-called German virtues to be obligatory.
After the U17 tournaments, Wück said that he had given his players the goal of showing the other nations how difficult it was to win against Germany. The Franconian native found it all the more remarkable that the young players took this motto to heart so successfully because today’s generation “no longer knows” the game of the past. So the game of footballers like world champion Guido Buchwald, European champion Hans-Peter Briegel – or, fittingly, Horst Hrubesch. Not always pretty to look at, but effective and with a focus on the essential tasks.
This in turn is reminiscent of the interim national coach’s recipe for success: When Hrubesch took over, insecure national players found their way back to self-confidence with basic work on both occasions. Wück will be able to build on this basis when he begins his biggest challenge to date as a coach a good twelve and a half years after his first engagement with the DFB.