Before the World Cup “the anger escalated”
DFB once planned Klinsmann’s expulsion in the middle of the tournament
June 16, 2026 – 11:52 a.mReading time: 2 minutes
Tunisia fires its coach after the first World Cup game. The DFB once came up with a similar plan – only four people knew about it.
After the 5-1 defeat against Sweden at the start of the World Cup, Tunisia fired its coach Sabri Lamouchi for the current tournament. The successor has already been determined and will take over immediately. Read more about this here. It is the second time that Tunisia has changed its coach during a World Cup. Henryk Kasperczak had to leave in 1998 after two group stage defeats.
The DFB also once toyed with the idea of swapping coaches during the tournament – and of all things for a “summer fairy tale”. The German Football Association had prepared a secret emergency plan during the 2006 home World Cup.
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“If a sporting disaster were to emerge at the World Cup and Klinsmann could no longer be retained, we decided that Matthias Sammer should take over at the helm at short notice.” Former DFB President Theo Zwanziger revealed this in his autobiography “The Twenties” in 2012.
“Anger escalated”
The trigger was the 1:4 friendly defeat against Italy in March 2006. “The whole of Germany, and I include myself in this, saw black for the World Cup,” writes Zwanziger in his book. Afterwards, the DFB began to doubt Klinsmann behind the scenes – also because the national coach flew to his second home USA after the game as planned and was represented by Oliver Bierhoff and Joachim Löw at the subsequent World Cup coaches workshop.
Internally, “the anger escalated,” said Zwanziger. According to the ex-DFB president, only four people knew about the emergency plan: himself, DFB general secretary Horst R. Schmidt, Franz Beckenbauer and Wolfgang Niersbach. Matthias Sammer was not inaugurated. Zwanziger was nevertheless convinced that Sammer would not have refused in an emergency – “his sense of duty would not have allowed him to say no.”
Löw not a candidate
Joachim Löw was eliminated from the outset as a possible replacement candidate. As an assistant coach, he would have “burned himself out” in the event of failure, writes Zwanziger – because he was part of the Klinsmann concept.
That didn’t happen. Germany took third place at the home World Cup. Two days after the tournament final, Klinsmann announced that he would not extend his contract – and Löw took over. The 2006 tournament is now known as the “Summer Fairy Tale.” Zwanziger also sums up in his book: “Fortunately, none of us were embarrassed.”