The German national team is rapidly losing positions in the FIFA rankings. Even before the series of friendly matches in June, the Germans were only in 14th place, and after the disastrous results, they will drop a few more lines. Hans-Dieter Flick’s team has been exempted from qualifying for Euro 2024 and is forced to prepare for the home tournament only through test matches.
So far, the process of building a team at the head coach is going with a creak, and the threat of resignation has hung over Flik himself. In addition to the lack of victories, fans are annoyed by the quality of the game and tactical lack of ideas. Flick himself is not going to resign, but if the black series continues, no one will ask about his desires.
Three failures in a row
The previous Bundestim era was associated with the name of Joachim Loew, who gave the national team a total of 17 years. Under him, the team reached the final of the Euro and took the gold of the World Cup, for a decade remaining one of the main contenders for the title of major tournaments.
It seemed that Loew and the German Football Association managed to build an ideal system. Youth and youth teams did not experience a shortage of talent, which smoothly flowed into the main team. The generation of Ballack and Schweinsteiger was replaced by Müller and Goetze: the car remained the same powerful, it was just necessary to change parts in time.
The match between the German national team and the Mexican national team / Photo: © Vasily Ponomarev / Edgar Breshchanov / Sportbox.ru
A failure in the system was outlined after Euro 2016, where the Germans reached the semi-finals. After that, the failures began. At the World Championships in Russia, Germany finished last in the group. At Euro 2021, she left her quartet with great adventures, but immediately ran into England. After that, Leo handed over the national team to Flick, but it didn’t get any better with him either: the recent World Cup in Qatar turned into another failure and absence from the playoffs.
At some points, the Germans were frankly unlucky, but no one canceled the formula about chance, coincidence and regularity. Obviously, the German national team was covered by a systemic crisis, similar to the one that was at the beginning of this century. Then the situation was corrected by a global restructuring of the entire process of preparing young players and the corrosive approach of Joachim Loew. Now it becomes obvious to many that after his departure, the team was transferred to the wrong person.
Idealess Flick
Hans-Dieter Flick / Photo: ©
REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
Two years ago, Flick’s shares before joining the national team were as high as possible. In a short period at Bayern, from a no-name coach, he turned into a phenomenon who gave out a record winning streak, and in 2020 scored a treble with a victory in the Champions League. The following year, he routinely won another German championship, but due to disagreements with the scandalous boss Salihamidzic, he was forced to leave the club.
The choice in favor of Flick seemed ideal: the national team was the first in Europe to qualify for the 2022 World Cup and went to Qatar with high hopes. As a result, the Bundesteam was more remembered for its action with closed mouths, but not for football. The German national team at all times was called a car, but under the control of Flick, it turned into a decrepit moped. The Germans did not demonstrate any new ideas, incredible speeds or outstanding physical fitness.
Flick was blamed for putting too much trust in Bayern players. The coach really relied on the players he knew well, for example, on the same Kimmich, while reducing the role of Ilkay Gundogan. The smartest playmaker he constantly removed from the field in the second half. The lack of reliable defense, without which there is nothing to catch in major tournaments, is another problem that Flick could not do anything about.
Representatives of the gold team-2014 have grown old, but there were no new leaders. The defeat at the start of the group stage from Japan eventually became fatal. Even then, the German press called for the immediate dismissal of Flick, but they decided to give the coach another chance.
Continuation of the nightmare
Usually, it is not customary to attach great importance to friendly matches, but against the background of the failure in Qatar, each new misfire of the Bundesteam was perceived as painfully as possible. After the March meetings with Peru (2:0) and Belgium (2:3), the audience behaved relatively calmly, but three June freight trains finally shook Flick’s position.
Antonio Rüdiger / Photo: ©
REUTERS /
It all started with a game against Ukraine (3:3) in Bremen: the experimental squad of the Germans managed to get only a draw, and even then thanks to two goals in the end. This was followed by defeats from mediocre Poland (0:1) and Colombia (0:2), which could not reach the last World Cup.
In total, over the last nine matches, the Flick team has only three victories over such “grands” as Oman, Costa Rica and Peru. The pressure on the head coach at home is colossal: journalists do not even think of being patient and looking for positive moments in the game.
Flick is rightly criticized, but there are no less questions for the heads of German football. Still, before his finest hour at Bayern, he never showed himself as a coach. For three years he worked in the German Football Association as a sports director (he was in the national team at the victorious 2014 World Cup), and he headed the top club largely by accident. Flik is more suited to the role of a manager, rather than a developer of innovative schemes or a specialist in introducing young players to the national team.
The problems of the 2022 World Cup have not gone away: the team often possesses the ball without threatening someone else’s goal, and when it is lost, it is lost and provides opponents with too much space. The lack of real “deciders” like Muller or Klose is another problem for Flick. For this role, Florian Wirtz or even Kai Havertz is clearly not being pulled yet.
Last chance
Flick, despite all the failures, is not going to resign. The head coach assures that he has a lot of ideas suitable for the national team and promises to perform better in the September matches. For Flick, the games against Japan and France promise to be decisive, despite their friendly status.
Now the head coach is saved by the patience of the authorities, who are still calmly reacting to defeat in games with a line-up that is far from optimal. In addition, if you remove Flik, you need to find an adequate replacement, and there are not so many free coaches of the national team status in Germany. Julian Nagelsman is still out of work, but he is clearly focused on working at a top club.
In such a situation, Flik can be inspired by the experience of a good friend of Joachim Loew – Stanislav Cherchesov, who at one time had to face total negativity on the eve of a home tournament. The Russian national team has been rolling nondescript freight trains for two years, the press demanded the coach’s early resignation, not expecting anything good before the start of the 2018 World Cup. How it all ended, everyone remembers well.
