What can you think of this man? After the first game against France, Jogi Löw was the coach who didn’t dare. He made the French so big in preparation for this game that his players felt very small. He leashed his players without need, he took away their play instinct and their thirst for adventure. The players didn’t let their coach down, they bravely fought for a fake superiority, but never shot at the French goal. It was clear: Löw is through, he should have retired after the 2018 World Cup to cruise through Höllental full-time in his oldtimer. The lion is no longer burning properly, how should he set his players on fire?
Four days later, he let his team off the leash. His players were on fire and at the same time equipped with a coherent match plan, which Löw had revised based on the impressions of the first game. It was clear: The Löw is far from done, he wants to know again. Hasn’t it always been his best discipline to harness defiance and to be tight just when everyone thinks he’s limp?
And now, in the third game against Hungary? Loew stood in the jungle rain of Fröttmaning and had to watch how almost his entire life’s work got wet. Not even ten minutes were missing, and he would have been the first and possibly only German national coach of all previous and future times to be knocked out of two consecutive tournaments in the preliminary round. And of course he would have been tried again in public. Have you ever seen a coach who, with full awareness, coaches against the psychological logic of a game and replaces a goal scorer (Havertz) immediately after the goal has been cleared, thereby leaving the last spark of the penalty area?
Ten minutes later, Joachim Löw wasn’t kicked out after all. It can no longer be ruled out that the national coach will become historical in the opposite way. That he will be standing next to the Queen at Wembley Stadium in a little over two weeks and receive a trophy. And that the public cheered him up and clucked his tongue again enjoying the memory of the third round game against Hungary, when Löw’s excellent substitutions (Musiala, Werner, Goretzka) resulted in the goal of 2-2.
The team is the biggest mystery to itself at the moment
The coach Löw is now like a huge buffet, there is something for everyone. His critics can easily help themselves, they find more than enough. And even his sympathizers don’t have to look very long to find something.
Sometimes Löw has been accused of having, in addition to all of his outstanding merits, the inclination to coach an important game from time to time, but since the 2018 World Cup he has been selling the games. And that is the somewhat alarming news at the end of this strange German preliminary round: Over the years, Löw has always been a coach who has kept a secret (sympathetic point of view) or has remained a mystery (criticism point of view), but this disposition seemed like a pleasant punchline all these years. In addition to this friendly, but difficult to assess coach, there was a mostly very easy to assess and reliable team that always followed this coach. Since 2018, however, you have had the feeling that the coach’s style has had an impact on the team: It has also become a little strange. She constantly loses leadership in the Nations League, always falls behind in the tournament and plays like a big one and sometimes like a little one. The yo-yo-yogi is currently in charge of a yo-yo team.
However, it can no longer be overlooked that behind the mutual fickleness there are also a few technical inadequacies. Löw has allowed (too) much time to pass since 2018 and only started very late to build a tournament team that can rely on at least a few personal and tactical constants. How this tournament continues will depend on which of the possible Löw interpretations will be passed on to the team. Whether she remains a mystery to herself – then the EM could be over on Tuesday. Or whether she still has a secret – then she can still win this tournament.