National team
Full on the Völler card: DFB conjures mood swing
Rudi Völler took up his post as “director of the senior national team” on February 1st. photo
© Sebastian Gollnow/dpa
The DFB leadership remains true to its communication strategy. The national team and Hansi Flick are strongly talked about. The first real mood test at the end of March will be all the more important.
When three of the four most important men in German football place major interviews over a weekend, there has to be something to say.
Instead of concrete measures after three major tournament disappointments, Hans-Joachim Watzke in “Spiegel” and the great popular figure Rudi Völler and Bernd Neuendorf in the ZDF “Sportstudio” limited themselves to a lot of approximate things. And that somehow everything will be fine for the 2024 home European Championship. Six weeks before the important first mood test for Hansi Flick and the DFB selection, which is now being talked about again, a risky game.
“We have to look ahead,” Völler said on Saturday evening in the TV studio. After all: The audience’s loud applause for the 1990 world champion and former DFB team boss showed that the 62-year-old works as the hoped-for mood brightener.
Backing for Flick
“I do believe that we have a very, very good team, that we have really good young players,” postulated the new sporting director, regardless of the past tournament flops. The new hope in the German Football Association is just as convinced of the persistently silent national coach Flick as DFL boss Watzke (“Flick makes the EM”) and DFB President Neuendorf (“Feel the trust”). Also because they have to be.
With the decision for Flick early after the World Cup in Qatar and for Völler as a figurehead who is supposed to tear the fans out of the current rejection and indifference surrounding the national team, the financially reeling association has created facts that it has to defend. “We will try everything to inspire people again,” said Völler. As DFB team boss, he had already managed to do that in a critical sporting situation at the beginning of the millennium.
As Völler knows, that primarily happens “on the pitch” through “great football”. Völler sees the fact that the decision, still under Oliver Bierhoff until the start of the tournament in June 2024, means that only friendlies are on the program – participation as a guest in a qualifying group would have been possible – sees Völler as “counterproductive”. Doesn’t matter. But he was “so convinced” that Flick could do it, said the tribune.
Vague announcements
Unlike 20 years ago, when national coach Jürgen Klinsmann came to Völler, it remains unclear what will actually change in the national team. “I think there will be some things that he will change,” Neuendorf said of Flick, “maybe trying out new players.” At the weekend, the national coach sat in the stands in Hoffenheim and saw, among other things, the young Florian Wirtz – a possible face of the new beginning. The 19-year-old was missing from the World Cup squad after a long injury break.
The preliminary round in Qatar is still classified as a slip-up by the DFB, and the public praise of the players before the tournament is not considered a mistake. “We were thrown out due to a combination of various circumstances,” said Watzke. “Of course we weren’t outstanding, but we weren’t terrible either.”
The elusive mood of the fans around the DFB selection was identified as a more fundamental problem. That’s why Völler came. “You can say that he has already achieved something,” said Neuendorf. In the next international game window with the tests on March 25 in Mainz against Peru and three days later in Cologne against Belgium, there should be public training sessions as a small goodwill measure. During the home European Championship, the DFB selection will then withdraw to the huge premises of partner Adidas in the Franconian province of Herzogenaurach.
Neuendorf began the discussion about earlier kick-off times that were more suitable for children, with reference to the difficult contract negotiations with UEFA and the German TV stations. “I’m ready to have these talks,” said the DFB President, who then, just a few minutes later, reported urgently on the association’s financial difficulties.
There will be cuts
“Expenditure regularly exceeds income, also due to sporting failures,” said the 61-year-old. He confirmed that “all areas” in the DFB were currently being examined for potential savings. “It is also a fact that there will be projects that we will have to cancel, there will be cuts.” The supposed image of the DFB as a “super-rich association where everything goes, where money doesn’t matter” is not correct. With sporting success – especially the men’s national team – it would be much easier.
In the current financial report, the DFB recorded a minus of 33.5 million euros due to necessary tax provisions. World champion Argentina had received bonuses of around 40 million euros for the title at the Qatar World Cup. The DFB, which was eliminated in the group phase in Russia in 2018, received just under ten million euros. But he also didn’t have to pay out expensive success bonuses to the players. “We clearly need countermeasures,” warned Neuendorf. The “focus” must be that “we win back sporting success,” said the DFB President. He fully relies on Völler.