On Saturday, Christian Wück, a former Bundesliga striker, was the guest of honor at the DFB Cup final in Berlin and he appeared in festive clothes. Under the beige dress jacket with the coat of arms of the German Football Association, he wore the black and red alternate jersey of the national team – and on his chest a gold medal that had to blind everyone opposite.
The souvenir from the U17 European Championships, in which Wück’s team beat France 5-4 on penalties in the final, represented a minor sensation. This title was somewhat surprising – and above all the first since 2009. Since Germany became world champion in Brazil in 2014, the EM triumph of the DFB youngsters in 2009 has been considered a kind of omen. Among the teenagers’ title holders at the time was a certain Mario Götze, who rose to become the winning goalscorer against Argentina in the 2014 final.
Nothing guarantees that Germany will triumph at the 2028 European Championships or bring a new star from the sky at the 2030 World Cup. But Wück had brought a few messages with him from Hungary that give hope in this regard. If you put them together, the result was: Germany is Germany again.
Ceremony in front of a large backdrop in the Berlin Olympic Stadium
“We have decided that we want to send a signal to the Germans, but above all to the other nations: that it is incredibly difficult to win against Germany,” Wück said in an interview in Berlin before his team went into the half-time break of the cup final was honored. It was therefore not only important to Wück to have won the European Championship. The circumstances were even more important to him: “Not only did we play a very good tournament, but we overcame obstacles in every game – except perhaps in the 4-0 win against Portugal.” Also in the final: The victory was successful, although Noah Darvich, captain and tenth of the team, missed the first penalty. You have to overcome such a setback in such a situation, said Wück: “We have won many, many games through our struggle, through will, through our virtues.” The coach found that all the more remarkable as he was instructing a generation that “didn’t know any more” about all these things.
Final win against France: Keeper Max Schmitt secures the 5:4 win on penalties.
(Photo: Balint Szentgallay/Zuma/Imago)
Wück has been working with the now triumphant vintage for almost three years, and it has always been important to him to “keep instilling in the young players what the Germans stand for abroad”. What is that? “That we never give up, that we stick together, always believe in ourselves – and don’t lose this belief until the last minute.” In recent years, that has “got a bit lost” in youth football, believes Wück, because only “technical elements” and “the beautiful game” have been in the foreground.
It is obvious to take an example from those heroes of the past who excelled more with their attitude than their attitude grades. “A Guido Buchwald could defend, nothing else. But he could defend at world-class level!”, Wück shouted and sounded like the advocate of a paradigm shift, although he propagated a matter of course: “A defender must be able to defend, a full-back must be able to defend and hit crosses .” Which doesn’t mean that among his players there aren’t some “who can play excellent football and are technically perfect”.
These include in particular Paris Brunner, a 17-year-old striker from Borussia Dortmund, who became one of the four tournament top scorers with Robert Ramsak (FC Bayern) with four goals, and 16-year-old Darvich, an elegant left foot who prefers the right Side comes, starts diagonal runs and impresses with technology and overview.
“The two of them pulled the boys along with their performance and appearance,” says Wück – and also draws attention to Finn Jeltsch from 1. FC Nürnberg, who does not play in central defense at the club, but has been ordered there by Wück in the U17s and “played the tournament of his life”: “In the final against France he saved us from conceding two or three times.”
International scouts follow the vintage with interest
Such achievements arouse interest: youth tournaments are attended not only by youth football aficionados, but above all by the scouts of the big clubs. Even before the tournament, there were murmurs about Darvich, who was born the son of a French-Iraqi language school headmaster in Freiburg. The interest of FC Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain and FC Bayern is guaranteed. He confirmed the reputation that precedes him in Budapest with six points. “Especially with Noah, I’m not worried,” said Wück. “I know that he wants and has to do his Abitur next year – in Freiburg,” says Wück. “He feels very, very comfortable there, and my information is that SC Freiburg has also found solutions that make him sporty happy.”
The reference to the Abitur is no coincidence. When it comes to training young people, Wück is not only concerned with Buchwald, but also with books. The DFB team was accompanied by two teachers at the tournament: “During this European Championship, the boys had to write 16 exams that they would have had to take at school under normal circumstances.” Wück did not yet know the results of the tests on Saturday. But he sounded like there was a chance of success in that regard, too.