“What do we actually stand for?”
Matthias Sammer has a clear criticism of German football
07/13/2025 – 6:45 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
Matthias Sammer goes hard with German football – and asks provocatively: “What does German football actually stand for today?”
Matthias Sammer sees fundamental problems in German football – and calls for a critical argument. In an interview with the “Kicker”, the former national player commented in detail about the current situation.
“As you can see in our football history, we Germans always have been closed, robust and compact,” said Sammer. There were single players with an exceptional skill, but the strength was always the collective. Today he recognizes little of it: “We were a machine. Today we are still a maximum of one machine.”
The 57-year-old sees a fundamental misunderstanding in dealing with modern developments. “We have no artificial intelligence on the pitch, no AI, but thinking and feeling people who need confidence and processes,” said Sammer. In his view, the current interpretation is therefore problematic.
When asked about the quarter-finals of German clubs in European competitions and the club World Cup and the German national team at the home European Championships 2024, Sammer replied that this balance sheet was “in order”: “But on the basis of our claims, we should still analyze and question why it did not go on.”
For Sammer, one of the reasons is that German football has “lost its basic identity and thus essential strengths”. Certainly changes and innovations were necessary, but these aspects were “granted a higher priority in perception and reasoning than the traditional strengths,” said the 57-year-old.
“These were incorrectly dismissed as rumbling football, football from yesterday or old school. The balance between innovation and tradition to preserve our identity has not been successful,” said Sammer: “I consciously ask myself, when I see German football, the question: What actually stands for German football today?”