“First of all”
National coach reacts to Sammer scolding
Updated on August 28, 2025 – 2:44 p.m.Reading time: 3 min.
Most recently there had been criticism of Julian Nagelsmann and his team. Now the national coach is reacting.
Julian Nagelsmann reacted to the criticism of Matthias Sammer on the playing style of the German team. As part of the squadramination for the upcoming World Cup qualification games, the national coach said: “In general, I am always open to criticism. But I am always a big friend that you always do it personally when it affects you personally.”
This was preceded by Matthias Sammer’s interview with the “kicker” last summer. Among other things, Sammer had criticized that the DFB team had forgotten to defend and, in his opinion, mediocre results, as the quarter-finals at home are beautiful.
“As you can see from our football history, we Germans always closed, robust and compactly performed,” said Sammer. “We had single players who were geniuses; but as a team we were a machine. Today we are still a maximum of one machine.” In addition, he wanted more critical consideration again.
Nagelsmann did not criticize Sammer in terms of content, but the way he raised the criticism: “With the awareness of having an interview, the person you want to criticize can be informed beforehand,” he said. In terms of content, of course, everyone can have their opinion and also express.
There was also criticism of Nagelsmann’s confident announcement to become world champion in 2026. The national coach cannot understand this: “I think the goal of calling out that we want to become world champions is not now arrogant or not humble enough, but I think that’s normal,” he said.
At the International Trainer Conference a few weeks ago, Nagelsmann met ex-Freiburg coach Christian Streich, who confirmed him in this view. “With Christian I already have the feeling that he is a down-to-earth guy who understands what is important in life,” said the 38-year-old. “He also asked me: what would be the alternative to say to the players? Let’s see that we survive the group phase? Do you think they are more motivated? I don’t know.”