What a perspective: At the start of the home European Championship year, the national team is woefully gutted. A framework and a clear game idea are missing. Can the national coach handle it?
On New Year’s Eve, Julian Nagelsmann was only too happy to leave the old year behind him. Expulsion from FC Bayern, false start as national coach – everything can only get better for him in 2024. Or not?
The DFB bosses still see the 36-year-old as a stroke of luck on the way to the European Championship in their own country. And Nagelsmann himself sees the home tournament as a historic opportunity for the country, the players, the association, which is doomed to success – and not least for himself.
“It’s an incredible privilege to be able to play a home European Championship,” said Nagelsmann when looking ahead to 2024. The national coach with the short-term contract until July – and without any tournament experience – has known at least since the powerful goals in the friendly games against Turkey (2 :3) and Austria (0:2) in November, what heights the European Championship project entails for him personally. The extremes are: celebrated and courted tournament coach – or just the next national coach who failed in a hurry?
EM project manager with solutions
“The dismissal at Bayern is a day that will be remembered,” Nagelsmann said recently on ZDF’s “Sportstudio” about the low point in 2023. Otherwise, he tried to assure the doubting fans in Germany that, as the European Championship project manager, he was responsible for everything Having solutions ready. A key sentence was: “I knew that it was difficult, that it was a big task, but also a task that could be mastered.”
The Herculean task looks like this a little more than 160 days before the European Championship opening game against Scotland in Munich on June 14th: The DFB selection is at zero point at the start of the tournament year. There is no personnel structure, no game idea, no self-image through victories – and certainly no euphoria in the host country with regard to their own team.
The DFB leadership, which is already very nervous after the coaching change from Hansi Flick to Nagelsmann, has to announce slogans for perseverance. “The fever curve will rise,” said President Bernd Neuendorf about the anticipation of the European Championship. Sure, the stadiums will be sold out. But 18 years after the 2006 World Cup, are only the many away fans experiencing a new summer fairytale in Germany this time?
Difficult test opponents
Sports director Rudi Völler, who continues to circle the DFB orbit as a team boss emergency solution, is undauntedly hoping for a boost in morale when the long international break ends with the test matches at the end of March in Lyon against France and in Frankfurt against arch-rivals Holland. “We then want to ignite something,” announced fan favorite Völler (63). Nagelsmann also sees the games as his chance. But they are two prestigious duels with great risks and side effects. “We know that it’s not enough against the top nations,” said returnee Mats Hummels after the last test match flops.
The core question is: How does Nagelsmann react? Will he be able to switch roles from club to national coach in time? And how many more retro measures does he take? Back to the German virtues? To bring in even more world champions from 2014? Hummels (35) and Thomas Müller (34) are already there. Manuel Neuer, who will soon be 38 years old, should be back in goal after his long-term broken leg in March. And Nagelsmann even paved the way for a comeback for Toni Kroos, who turns 34 on Thursday.
Real Madrid veteran Kroos, who retired as a national player in 2021 after 106 international matches, as a European Championship savior? “Germany has many strong midfielders. But I can imagine that Toni Kroos would be good for the team with his routine, his cleverness, his simplicity and his organizational talent,” said Ottmar Hitzfeld, the former champion coach of FC Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, at the turn of the year from the German Press Agency.
The former Swiss national coach also has a “very good opinion” of Nagelsmann, who he believes will be able to achieve the turnaround in 2024. “I believe that the experimental phase is over and that next year he will focus primarily on practice. I am convinced of him. He is a strategist who will prepare the team well,” says Hitzfeld (74).
EM opponents: Scotland, Hungary, Switzerland
Scotland, Hungary, Switzerland – these are the opponents against whom the DFB team has to prevail as European Championship hosts in Group A. “Germany is and remains the favorite,” believes Hitzfeld. Nagelsmann wants to “change something about the squad structure” in the little time he has left. The slogan is more workers instead of offensive sophisticates: “The advantage of being a national coach is that you can always reassemble the squad.”
Nagelsmann tried out 27 players in the four games against the USA (3:2), Mexico (2:2) and in the defeats against Turkey and Austria. He still has four more test runs left. “Other things are needed given where we are right now,” he said. The approach in the new year should be to “fight your way into games through work”. There are also positional shifts: Joshua Kimmich to the right back, captain Ilkay Gündogan further forward in midfield in front of “a block of six that thinks defensively”.
Nagelsmann announced a decisive and consistent course. “There are a lot of decisions to be made that will keep me busy,” he said, looking ahead to the coming months. Back to simplicity could be the best way. A simplicity that was emphasized in unison by the national players after the 2-1 win against France under interim coach Völler immediately after Flick was replaced in September.
Three botched tournaments under Joachim Löw (2018 World Cup, 2021 European Championship) and Flick (2022 World Cup) are behind the DFB. The opening game was always the beginning of the early end. 2018 World Cup, 0-1 against Mexico. EM 2021, 0-1 against France. World Cup 2022, 1:2 against Japan. That’s why tournament veteran Neuer said: “We want a sensible start to the tournament – without a lot of stress.”