Völler comments on Neuer’s comeback
May 27, 2026 10:14 p.m. | 2:43m
DFB sports director Rudi Völler speaks in an interview with Monica Lierhaus about the return of Manuel Neuer, the XXL World Cup and the conclusions from 2018 and 2022. All statements will be available on May 29th (12:35 a.m.) in the RTL Nachtjournal Spezial.
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I know that there has been contact between Julian and Manuel over the last month or two and that they have always spoken together. Could she imagine that? And then, yes, the national coach always thought that this could be done, even though Oliver Baumann did very, very well in qualifying. Then it was hard to rely on him. You never know. Now Manuel is there. We’re glad they all. That we have him back. But a World Cup like this is long. We just said it. We want to stick around for a long time, something can always happen. And we all know that Oliver is absolutely reliable.
The pressure was always there. And there are so many national coaches here, i.e. 80 million, it was always clear that everyone has and is allowed to have an opinion. We are the Germans’ favorite child. It is also important that it is that way and that there are other opinions and a bit of criticism every now and then. You have to be able to deal with that.
Yes, I think that’s the team and everyone, everyone involved, the players anyway, the coaches, the coach, the national coach, the trainers and all of us, including us officials from the DFB. We already know that it is the most important tournament there is in football. This is a world championship. And that’s why I think everyone can handle it. You can handle the pressure, but also the joy, the anticipation. I don’t think there is anyone who isn’t looking forward to this World Cup. This will be a huge spectacle and will also be very long. We have one more round so of course it would be nice. It will be a long time for us because it would mean that we have come relatively far, far.
We don’t just want to win the group in this way, of course. So we want to play well, but I hope we can go far in the rounds after that, so that we have a team like that on the pitch that really. Yes, I’ll put it this way. I’m not a fan of saying we’re coming now, we’re getting to the quarters or semi-finals or the final. I think my favorite question is a bit like this. We want to make it difficult for everyone else to beat us. But I do believe that we can manage it, that we will play a very good World Cup. As I said, we’ll see whether we make it all the way to the podium in the end. But I am very optimistic.
