Joachim Löw looks back: Should have resigned after the 2018 World Cup

Self-doubt after 2014 title

Self-doubt in the initial period after the World Cup triumph in Rio, a missed resignation after the 2018 World Cup embarrassment: Joachim Löw spoke about crucial moments in his time as national coach. The 63-year-old explained in the podcast “Playmaker – The EM Talk by Sebastian Hellmann and 360Media” in collaboration with Studio Bummens, looking back at the 2018 preliminary round exit in Russia, that it was a tournament in which a lot went wrong. “At that moment you would normally have to clear the way, especially when you have been a coach for as long as I have. And to give a new coach the opportunity to give new impulses,” said Löw in the article, which is to be published this Thursday.

A few days later in 2018, he spoke to the then national team manager Oliver Bierhoff. “We actually wanted to get this ship running again,” said Löw, describing the conversation. It was just a tournament in which they were poor in all areas and did not live up to expectations. “We wanted to make up for that at the next tournament,” reported Löw.

At the European Championships, which took place in 2021 instead of 2020 due to the corona pandemic, Löw and his team failed in the round of 16 with a 2-0 defeat in the classic against England. In March 2021, he had previously announced that he would be leaving his position after the European Championships and would not continue as planned and contractually agreed to continue until the World Cup at the end of 2022. “In retrospect, it would probably have been better or right for me to say in 2018: OK, new forces have to be brought in again,” affirmed Löw in the podcast.

Löw first identified self-doubt after the 2014 World Cup success. He “somehow felt a certain emptiness in me because I had worked towards a goal for so long and achieved it.” He asked himself what still drives him after winning the title, what motivates him and how he can further improve the team. That was difficult to answer. “That triggered at least some self-doubt in me at the time. I’ve never had that before in eight years.”

Löw started working under then national coach Jürgen Klinsmann as his assistant coach at the German Football Association in August 2004. After the home World Cup in 2006, he replaced Klinsmann as national coach.

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