Ex-national coach
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg: “Completely collapsed”
Former national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg spoke for the first time about her psychological problems after the German footballers were eliminated from the World Cup. photo
© Sebastian Gollnow/dpa
The sick report and her inglorious end as national coach kept the DFB and the German women’s team busy for a long time. Now Martina Voss-Tecklenburg speaks in detail about this time.
A feeling of pressure on the chest, panic attacks and insomnia were the result, said the 55-year-old in a ZDF interview, in response to internal and public criticism: “I basically collapsed completely.”
The fears, insecurity and emptiness in her head became increasingly stronger – almost as if the plug had been pulled from me. The German Football Association announced at the beginning of September that Voss-Tecklenburg was ill.
After a long stalemate, the DFB appointed Horst Hrubesch as interim coach for the German women, who had failed in the preliminary round of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The DFB terminated the contract with Voss-Tecklenburg, which runs until 2025, at the beginning of the month.
Voss-Tecklenburg had also recently attracted criticism because she gave two lectures even though she had not yet been reported as healthy again by the DFB at the time. “I then made the public appearances. In retrospect you can say: How stupid – mistake,” said Voss-Tecklenburg now.