National team
Contrary to life planning: Rudi Völler back to the DFB?
Former DFB team boss Rudi Völler had most recently worked as sporting director at Bayer Leverkusen. photo
© Marius Becker/dpa
Rudi Völler also has a say in how things will continue with the national team and without Bierhoff. Perhaps he himself will become weak again and take responsibility.
“There is only one Rudi Völler” – that’s what fans sing to this day when the now white-haired ex-star striker shows up somewhere. The 62-year-old former team boss of the national soccer team could now help the DFB out of trouble for a second time – if he wants to do that to himself.
In the search for a successor for the resigned director Oliver Bierhoff, Völler should be one of the candidates, as reported by “Bild”.
“Basically, my life planning looks different,” Völler told the newspaper. The 1990 world champion could not be reached for a more specific statement. The former sports director at Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen had already agreed to work on the association’s task force after the German team’s World Cup debacle in Qatar. This should clarify the Bierhoff successor and ensure that the men’s selection gets back on its feet with a view to the home European Championship in 2024.
In addition to Völler, the committee headed by DFB President Bernd Neuendorf and his deputy Hans-Joachim Watzke also includes Bayern Munich’s former CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, his successor Oliver Kahn, ex-DFB sports director Matthias Sammer and the former RB-Leipzig -Managing Director Oliver Mintzlaff. The group, whose less diverse and innovative composition has caused some criticism, is scheduled to meet again on January 19th. For Völler, the most important question is: “How do we win back the enthusiasm and love for the national team, for the most important team in our country?”
Völler is seen as someone who likes to help out
Bierhoff left the DFB after the World Cup in Qatar. After 18 years! Ex-national players such as Fredi Bobic, Sammer or Per Mertesacker have recently been traded as possible successors – but first a job profile should be created.
Völler could now help the association for the second time in a difficult situation: after the botched EM 2000, he initially stepped in as team boss and placeholder for Christoph Daum, who did not receive clearance from Leverkusen and later catapulted himself out of business with his coke scandal . At the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, Völler surprisingly led the national team to the final. After the preliminary round at the EM 2004, the native of Hanau then resigned.
Last summer Völler said goodbye to the big football stage after 45 years. “If I close something, I close it,” he said in a dpa interview at the time. “Above all, I’m looking forward to free weekends. It feels like I haven’t had a classic weekend since I was 17 or 18. I’m happy that the pressure is off.”
And now as a pensioner again in the middle of the crisis association DFB? Alongside national coach Hansi Flick? Basically, Völler is considered to be someone who likes to help out: only two months after his departure as DFB team boss, he gave in to his ex-club AS Roma’s solicitations. A decision he later regretted: “In 2004 I should have listened to my wife, who advised me against becoming a coach at AS Roma.”
He feels at least as connected to the DFB as Rome or Leverkusen. With the 90-time national player and world champion from 1990, you don’t know if he won’t weaken again.