National team
Flicks clear signals to Süle and Gnabry
National coach Hansi Flick speaks at a national team press conference on the DFB campus. photo
© Christian Charisius/dpa
After the personnel experiments in March, a system change for the international matches against Ukraine, Poland and Colombia is at the top of Hansi Flick’s European Championship agenda. There are announcements and reminders.
A year before the big opening game of the European Championship in Munich, Hansi Flick sends clear personnel signals, which must alarm the long-time regular Niklas Süle in particular.
In addition to the Dortmund defender and the Bavarian veteran Thomas Müller, who was put on the waiting list by the national coach in spring, the attacker Serge Gnabry, who was again accurate in Munich, is surprisingly missing from the squad for the 1000th international match against Ukraine on June 12 in Bremen. This will be followed by further tests in Warsaw against Poland and in Gelsenkirchen against Colombia.
Also Götze not in the squad
The day before the DFB Cup final with Eintracht Frankfurt in Berlin against defending champion RB Leipzig, the former World Cup final hero Mario Götze, who was brought back by Flick before the botched Qatar tournament, was no longer invited. The RB duo Lukas Klostermann and Benjamin Henrichs are back in the DFB elite group after a break.
On Friday, Flick spoke of “three strong opponents” when announcing his 26-strong squad with numerous prominent returnees such as Leroy Sané, Antonio Rüdiger, Ilkay Gündogan, Jamal Musiala, Julian Brandt, Robin Gosens and Jonas Hofmann. Against this one wants to show “that we are taking the next step”. After the highly eventful start to the year in March against Peru (2-0) and Belgium (2-3), progress is also urgently needed so that fans can look forward to the summer of 2024.
“We just didn’t get the performance”
Flick described the status quo of the national team 378 days before the start of the home tournament, which is so important for German football and the DFB: “We didn’t perform like that in the last three big tournaments. We just didn’t call up the performance,” he said at an early stage Failure at the 2018 World Cup, the 2021 European Championship and the 2022 World Cup for which he is responsible as head coach.
“We’re no longer at the top with the national team. That means we have to work our way back up step by step.” Winning with devotion is the best way to do this. “We cannot guarantee that we will win all three games. But we can guarantee that we will give 100 percent,” said Flick.
Flick wants to test a chain of three
After the personnel experiments with six newcomers in the spring, Flick has mainly focused his squad on a system change he is planning. “We have a lot of central defenders with us. That means we just want to try a three-man chain,” explained Flick. The 58-year-old imagines “a lot of offensive power over the outside players”. In addition, the three-way defense should be “defensively compact”. “We are very well positioned for this with our selected squad,” said the national coach. Flick’s statements must give the 27-year-old BVB star Süle food for thought.
On June 7, Flick gathers the squad in Frankfurt. During the first training session the day after, 600 fans can watch the team around young stars Musiala and Florian Wirtz practice on the DFB campus. Goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen (FC Barcelona) and defender Thilo Kehrer (West Ham United) will be absent from the team’s meeting point with club commitments.
Gosens and Gündogan join after the Ukraine game
The returnees Gosens (Inter Milan) and Gündogan (Manchester City) will only join the team after the Ukraine game because they will face each other in the Champions League final in Istanbul on June 10th. Storm talent Kevin Schade will travel to the U21s after the Ukraine game to then contest the European Championship finals with the DFB juniors.
Flick has the players together for almost two weeks, some of whom will arrive like the Munich champions from a short vacation after the end of the Bundesliga. DFB sporting director Rudi Völler expects the players to “up the ante” at the end of a grueling season. He said it was important “that some experienced players come back”.
Sport management: Völler announces decision
Half a year after the resignation of DFB director Oliver Bierhoff as a consequence of the World Cup disaster, further course are being set in the association and around the national team. Former world champion Sami Khedira (36) and coach Hannes Wolf (42) are to form a kind of dual leadership in the future as a kind of dual leadership in the DFB, as the portal “Sportbuzzer” reported.
Völler announced “a decision will be made shortly” on the sidelines of a “picture” event. Ex-world champion Khedira (36) should therefore take care of the strategic direction and could take over Völler’s role in the national team after the EM. The previous U20 national coach Wolf (42) would be responsible for the offspring and talent training.