Nine months before Euro 2024 at home, and two days before facing the France team, German coach Hansi Flick was dismissed from his duties the day after a humiliating defeat in a friendly match against Japan (1 -4), the German Federation (DFB) announced this Sunday. Flick led his last training session late this Sunday morning, open to the public, at the head of the Mannschaft in Wolsfburg. In contact with the 3,500 spectators, he was combative. “Yes, yes, I continue to fight,” he said, recognizing however that in professional football, it was difficult to predict anything.
The DFB ultimately opted for the most radical solution, a novelty for it, while none of Flick’s ten predecessors as coach had been dismissed from their functions. Arriving in office in the summer of 2021 to succeed the long mandate of Joachim Löw (fifteen years) marked by the world title in 2014, Hansi Flick found himself under increasing pressure as the counterattacks -performances followed one another.
Nagelsmann to take over?
After his elimination in the first round at the 2022 World Cup, the German Federation decided to keep him in his position, while appointing Rudi Völler as sports director to supervise him. The sequence of friendly matches in March and June was catastrophic, with only one victory against modest Peru (2-0), a draw snatched at the last minute against Ukraine (3-3) and defeats against Belgium (3-2, the first on German soil since 1954), Poland (1-0) and Colombia (2-0).
“Hansi raus!” » (“Hansi out!”) began to be heard in the stands of the stadium in Wolfsburg on Saturday evening after the fourth Japanese goal which completed ten months of a descent into hell for the Mannschaft. For Tuesday evening’s friendly match in Dortmund against France, current sporting director Rudi Völler, U-20 coach Hannes Wolf and Sandro Wagner will act as interim players. Among the names of potential successors to Flick circulating in the media are Julian Nagelsmann, Oliver Glasner and Stefan Kuntz.