Crisis of the national team
Hansi Flick remains national coach
Hansi Flick left the hotel without comment after the crisis meeting
© Boris Rössler / DPA
The crisis meeting between the DFB bosses Bernd Neuendorf and Hans-Joachim Watzke with national coach Hansi Flick has ended. Flick left the hotel without comment. The message came later: Flick remains national coach.
Hansi Flick remains national soccer coach. The 57-year-old should lead the German national team to the home European Championship 2024 despite the preliminary round at the World Cup in Qatar, as the German Football Association announced on Wednesday. This is the result of a crisis meeting with DFB President Bernd Neuendorf and DFB Vice Hans-Joachim Watzke. Flick’s contract runs until after the next tournament. National team director Oliver Bierhoff, on the other hand, had previously left sporting management after 18 years with the DFB. Bierhoff’s successor has not yet been regulated by the association.
“My coaching staff and I are optimistic about the European Championships in our own country. We as a team can achieve a lot more than we showed in Qatar. We missed a great opportunity there,” said Flick. “We will learn our lessons from this.”
Hansi Flick: I have confidence
Flick was also quoted as saying: “I have faith in the common path agreed today with Bernd Neuendorf and Aki Watzke. We all want the whole of Germany to gather behind the national team again at the home European Championship in 2024.” Flick had that on Tuesday Farewell to Bierhoff (54), his closest confidant, extremely regretted.
“We are both convinced that the 2024 European Championship in our own country represents a great opportunity for football in Germany. Our goal is to make this tournament a sporting success,” said Neuendorf. “We have full confidence in Hansi Flick that he and his team will master this challenge. With regard to Oliver Bierhoff’s successor, we have agreed to first discuss the future structure of this area of responsibility within the DFB, in order to then make a personnel decision meeting.”
After the meeting in a hotel just outside the city of Frankfurt, Flick initially drove his car out of the underground car park – without a word. Neuendorf and Watzke, who is also the DFL supervisor, stayed at the conference venue. An official statement was initially awaited.
Hide and seek before the round of three
There had been a game of hide-and-seek before the World Cup analysis of the round of three. Reporters and photographers waited in vain for Neuendorf, DFL supervisory board chairman Hans-Joachim Watzke and Flick on the Frankfurt DFB campus. But the trio had agreed to come to terms with the German World Cup failure in Qatar in the luxury hotel nine kilometers away outside of Frankfurt, where the national team often stays before international matches.
So now Flick remains responsible for the national team. He took over from Löw after the German team left the round of 16 at the European Championships in the summer of 2021. After seven titles with FC Bayern Munich, Bierhoff’s dream solution was to lead Germany “back to the top of the world”, as he said in his presentation.
Until the European Championships in a year and a half, the national team that automatically qualifies for the finals as hosts will only have friendlies to play. The next international matches will take place in March 2023 after a long winter break. With a record of eight wins, Flick was more successful than any national coach before him. In the following eleven games there are only three wins. At the World Cup, the DFB team was eliminated as third in the group after a 1-2 draw against Japan, a 1-1 draw against Spain and a 4-2 draw against Costa Rica.