In the past week, trust in the national coach and the national team has actually increased a little again. However, it can only be measured to a limited extent – and at a level that would have to be called an all-time low. “Do you trust national coach Flick and the national team to turn things around?”, the “Kicker” wanted to know in his “Question of the Week”. From Tuesday to Wednesday, the proportion of those who said yes increased from ten to twelve percent, but that means: 88 percent still voted no.
This is of course not representative, the “kicker” is not the Germany trend. But because there are other numbers that say something about the mood in football country, those of unsold tickets for the game against France on Tuesday (8:45 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for DFB international games and on ARD) in Dortmund For example, over 13,000 in the middle of the week, you have to see it like this: as a clear vote of no confidence in the first football institution in the country. And it’s not just because the question was illustrated with Flick’s picture, one has to add: it also has to do with the national coach himself.
Review, August 2021: When Flick speaks in a bright white shirt with his sleeves rolled up on the DFB campus, which is still a construction site at the time, he brings two goals with him: to lead German football “back to the top”, back to the top in the world , and to awaken enthusiasm among the audience again. Flick has so far failed with both. Despite a lively start, not only has he not made any progress, but things have recently gone backwards in every respect.
Is Hansi Flick still the right one?
The frustration for a year: five defeats, three draws, three wins, against Oman, Costa Rica and Peru. In addition to the sporting disappointments against Ukraine (3:3), in Poland (0:1) and especially against Colombia (0:2), June in particular also left a desolate mood and created the gentle atmospheric upswing that occurred after the World Cup gave, to nothing. Since then, Flick has not only been fighting for better results, but also for his job. And the football country, from the grassroots up to probably the top of the association, is asking itself: Is he still the right one?
The answer to this probably depends on two questions in particular. More on that later.
Last weekend an interview with Matthias Sammer appeared in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, which at a sensitive point seemed to be trying very hard not to send exactly one message: that Sammer, former DFB sports director and still a member of the German football task force set up after the World Cup disaster, would be there if the worst came to the worst National coach to step in. But because he not only gave Flick a few solid pieces of advice, but also because his sentences seemed so precisely crafted that one got the impression that they were supposed to leave exactly this gap open, it read: suspicious.
Flick himself switched to crisis communication mode shortly after the June games. When he “Kicker” was welcomed for an interview, one could see it as an unscheduled measure to straighten out the resulting picture a little, also on one’s own behalf. His messages: that the experiments in June – especially the three-man chain – were part of the program and that he would therefore have liked a little more understanding; In any case, the time for experimentation is now over. And: that from now on he wants to see a team with “self-image”. “I don’t feel like losing games anymore. “It pisses me off,” he complained. It sounded as if he wanted to speak from the soul of the football people – and that’s probably what he was supposed to do.
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