After the debacle at the World Cup in Qatar with the early exit in the group phase, Hansi Flick remains the German national coach. The 57-year-old is to lead the DFB selection to the home EM 2024, as the German Football Association announced on Wednesday following a crisis meeting near Frankfurt / Main. Flick’s contract runs until the end of the next tournament. National team director Oliver Bierhoff, on the other hand, had previously left sporting management following 18 years with the DFB.
Bierhoff’s successor has not yet been regulated by the association. “My coaching staff and I are optimistic regarding the European Championships in our own country. We as a team can achieve a lot more than we showed in Qatar. We missed a great opportunity there,” said Flick. “We will learn our lessons from this.”
On Wednesday, Flick sat at the approximately two-hour crisis summit with DFB President Bernd Neuendorf and DFL Supervisory Board Chairman Hans-Joachim Watzke in a hotel in Neu-Isenburg. The trio was able to agree on further cooperation following the next failure of the DFB selection in the World Cup group phase four years following the historic end under Joachim Löw in Russia.
“I have confidence in the joint path agreed today with Bernd Neuendorf and Aki Watzke. We all want the whole of Germany to gather behind the national team once more at the home European Championship in 2024,” said the national coach. On Tuesday, Flick extremely regretted the farewell to Bierhoff (54), his closest confidante.
“We are both convinced that the 2024 European Championship in our own country represents a great opportunity for football in Germany. Our goal is to make this tournament a sporting success,” said Neuendorf. “We have full confidence in Hansi Flick that he and his team will master this challenge. With regard to Oliver Bierhoff’s successor, we have agreed to first discuss the future structure of this area of responsibility within the DFB, in order to then make a personnel decision meeting.”
Flick took over from Löw following the German team had been eliminated from the round of 16 at the 2021 European Championship. After seven titles with Bayern Munich, Bierhoff’s dream solution was to lead Germany “back to the top of the world”, as he said in his presentation. With a record of eight wins, Flick was more successful than any national coach before him. In the following eleven games there are only three wins. At the World Cup, the DFB team was eliminated as third in the group following a 1-2 draw once morest Japan, a 1-1 draw once morest Spain and a 4-2 draw once morest Costa Rica.
