The snow chaos at Munich Airport also has an impact on Julian Nagelsmann’s travel plans for the draw for the European Championship preliminary round in Hamburg. The national coach will arrive late in the Hanseatic city, the German Football Association told the “German Press Agency”.
The 36-year-old should arrive in time for the start of the lottery ceremony in the Elbphilharmonie at 6 p.m. (RTL). Since his flight from Munich to Hamburg was canceled on Saturday morning due to heavy snowfall, the national coach spontaneously got into the car to take part in the European Championship draw in the evening (6 p.m.) in the Elbphilharmonie. However, Sandro Wagner’s assistant coaches will not come to Hamburg as planned. This was announced by the German Football Association (DFB).
There was an important draw without a national coach in Durban in 2007, when the then head coach Joachim Löw was unable to fly to South Africa to draw the qualifying tickets for the 2010 World Cup due to a toothache. Franz Beckenbauer once had to cancel at short notice for the draw for the 2011 Women’s World Cup – even then there was snow chaos and the Kaiser, like Oliver Kahn, got stuck. Günter Netzer stepped in at short notice as lottery ticket.
However, Nagelsmann has to cancel one item on the program on Saturday. DFB sports director Rudi Völler reported on Friday that he wanted to watch the U17 final of the German juniors in Indonesia against France together on the TV in the hotel with the 36-year-old to get in the mood for the draw.
Due to the severe rapid cases, flight operations in Munich were initially suspended until 12 p.m. The winter service is in action to enable safe operations again, said a spokesman on Saturday morning. So far, around 320 of 760 planned flights have been canceled for today. Rail traffic is also affected, particularly around Munich.
In Hamburg, the German national soccer team will be drawn into its three group opponents for the finals in summer 2024 (June 14th to July 14th). A very challenging group is possible, for example with the Netherlands, defending champions Italy and Austria – but also a supposedly easy task with, for example, Albania, Slovenia and a weak qualifier.