National coach Hansi Flick (58) was fired nine months before the home European Championships. The German Football Association (DFB) announced this one day after the 1:4 (1:2) disgrace against Japan in Wolfsburg.
On Tuesday (9 p.m./Sportschau) in Dortmund against runner-up world champion France, sports director Rudi Völler, U20 coach Hannes Wolf and Sandro Wagner will look after the team on a one-off basis.
Neuendorf: Dismissal was “inevitable”
“The committees agreed that the senior men’s national team after the recent disappointing results needs a new impulse”said DFB President Bernd Neuendorf. He described Flick’s expulsion as “inevitable”. Nine months before the home European Championships in 2024, the association has to look for a new coach in one of the deepest sporting crises in its history. At the end of 2022, the DFB selection failed in the preliminary round of the World Cup – even after a defeat against Japan.
Nagelsmann favorite to succeed him
With the dismissal, the association achieved something new: none of Flick’s ten predecessors were thrown out. Former Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann is considered the favorite to succeed Flick at the German Football Association.
Völler: “Not an easy moment”
DFB sports director Rudi Völler was affected by the departure of national coach Flick. “It’s not an easy moment for me, because I joined the DFB in February to support Hansi Flick with all I could to support him so that he can be successful in sport.”said Völler. He has “I firmly believed that as national coach he could get our national team back on track”, added the former team boss (2000 to 2004). Flick got himself “worn down in the last few months, he and his coaching team gave everything to turn things around for the better after being eliminated from the World Cup in Qatar”.
But after the defeat against Japan “Today we have to conclude that it was not successful”. I have the slap “It has clearly shown us that we can no longer make any progress in this situation”emphasized Völler.
New coach needs success quickly
After the duel with vice world champion France on Tuesday (9 p.m./ARD) in Dortmund, it will be “The most urgent task will be to hire a national coach who will quickly realign our team and prepare it for the big European Championship tournament next year, from which we all hope that there will be positive impulses for German football and also for our entire country,” Völler said: “A national coach who will then, in the long term, raise the national team back to the level that we know and expect from it.”