Amr Obaid (Cairo)
The German national team continued its historical stubbornness with “young” coaches, as the “machines” did not achieve their global or continental achievements except with “experienced” coaches.
Julian Nagelsmann has become the latest “victim” of this strange negative history of the German national team, as he is the second youngest coach to lead his country’s national team at the age of 36, and here he is leaving “empty-handed” from “Euro 2024”, despite it being held on German soil, as his adventure stopped at the round of 8, after the Spanish national team eliminated him from the tournament.
The “young” Nagelsmann was not the first to experience this with Germany. He was preceded nearly 100 years ago by his late compatriot Otto Nerz, who was the youngest to take on the task of coaching the “machines” in 1926, at the age of 34. Despite continuing in his position for 10 years, he did not succeed in achieving any accomplishments with the national team. In fact, Sepp Herberger, who gave Germany its first World Cup title in 1954, was 57 years old at the time, and took on this position at the age of 53. The funny thing is that he had previously taken on this task in 1936 when he was a young man of 39 years old, but he was eliminated from the group stage at the time in the “1938 World Cup.”
The legendary Helmut Schön, who won the Euro 1972 and the World Cup 1974 with Germany, took over at the age of 49 and won his first title at the age of 57. As for Jupp Derwall, he became the Germans’ coach at the age of 51 and won the Euro 1980 title when he was 53. If it can be said that Franz Beckenbauer took over as the German coach at the age of 39, he was not able to embrace glory with his country’s national team until the 1990 World Cup, when he was 45 years old. He was succeeded by Berti Vogts, who won Euro 1996 with the “machines” at the age of 50!
On the other hand, the “old man” Erich Ribbeck is one of the worst “veterans” to have ever graced the German national team, as he took over at the age of 61 and only spent two years in his seat after causing the team to be eliminated twice from the group stage, in the 1999 Confederations Cup and Euro 2000. The same thing happened with Hansi Flick, who took over at the age of 56 and also spent two years during which he was eliminated from the first round of the 2022 World Cup. Both times, the matter was linked to general criticism of the level of the national team’s players at the end of a football generation, more than an attack on the “veteran” coach.
The emergence of younger coaches with the German national team in recent years has followed the same “negative” approach, especially the most famous “attackers”, Rudi Völler and Jurgen Klinsmann, as both took over the task at the age of 40, and left without achieving any accomplishment, as the first was satisfied with the runner-up in the “2002 World Cup”, while third place was the harvest of the second in the 2005 Confederations Cup and the 2006 World Cup. The “Germans” did not submit except to the great Joachim Löw, who took over at the age of 46, and achieved his first titles at the age of 54 in the 2014 World Cup and then the 2017 Confederations Cup.
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