Watch the video: This is what Hansi Flick says about the test match debacle against Japan.
Even after the 4-1 disgrace against Japan at the start of the European Championship season, Hansi Flick still believes he is the “right coach” of the German national soccer team. “I think we’re doing well,” said the 58-year-old on Saturday on broadcaster RTL: “I can understand when the criticism is there and when it’s big. I can’t say anything more about it.”
After another defeat against the Japanese, 290 days after the preliminary round defeat and the World Cup exit in Qatar, Flick had to admit: “We currently don’t have the means to outplay such a compact defense.” Instead, he highlighted the good “basics” of the Asian world number 20. and demanded: “We in German football just have to wake up and work on these things.”
DFB-Elf have not won in five games
Under Flick’s leadership, the German team hasn’t managed a win in five games. “We have to make sure we go through this together. It doesn’t help to assign any blame at this point.” They now have to shake themselves up and try to perform differently on the pitch against runner-up France next Tuesday in Dortmund.
Record national player Lothar Matthäus believes a quick separation from national coach Hansi Flick is likely after the 4-1 debacle against Japan in Wolfsburg on Saturday. This was “more than just a discussion after the game,” said the 62-year-old on the TV channel RTL, “and I also know what has been going on at the DFB in the last few months. Not many people were behind Hansi Flick anymore. Rudi Völler, yes, but whether we can still keep him now – I doubt that.”
No clear commitment to Hansi Flick
Such a decision shouldn’t be due to a lack of alternative, said Matthäus: “Often the DFB may not have a plan B, but it’s also about the mood in the country.” When asked about Flick’s future on RTL, DFB sports director Rudi Völler said: “We should all do a little soul-searching and see what happens next. We’ll see.”
Matthäus suspects that the support for Flick from within the team is not as great as the players have publicly emphasized. The national coach had “perhaps lost trust,” said the 1990 world champion: “Something happened there, something happened there. I believe that the interpersonal relationship is not the way it is conveyed to the outside world.”
Germany’s “horrifying” 1:4 against Japan
The game against the Japanese, who had already defeated Germany in the group stage of the World Cup in Qatar, was frightening for Matthäus. “The bad thing is: the result is okay,” he said. The German team played “unimaginatively, without compactness, without joy in the game, without enthusiasm, without self-confidence”. “We are a football nation, but we don’t show it.”