Hansi Flick is here to stay: But with Euro 2024 just 18 months away the work is just beginning
Hansi Flick has announced that he will remain Germany's national team coach. But with the Euros in Germany just around the corner he faces a monumental task.
It is now confirmed Hansi Flick will remain Germany’s national team coach. The decision for Flick to stay on resulted from a crisis meeting that included DFB president Bernd Neuendorf and Dortmund CEO, as well as supervisor of the DFL board, Hans-Joachim Watzke.
"My coaching staff and I are optimistic regarding the European Championship in our own country,” Flick said in a statement published by the DFB. “As a team, we can achieve much more than we showed in Qatar. We missed a great opportunity there, and we will learn our lessons from that."
Neuendorf also released a statement to the press. "We are all convinced that the 2024 European Championship in our country represents a great opportunity for football in Germany,” Neuendorf said. “Our goal is to make this tournament a sporting success, and we have full confidence in Hansi Flick that he will succeed in this challenge together with his staff."
There is no doubt that Germany hosting the European Championships in 18 months is a magnificent opportunity. Like the 2006 World Cup, the tournament could become a catalyst for a football nation in distress at every level.
The national team, after all, is the symbol of a once proud footballing nation. Before 2018, Germany never failed to reach the last eight of any World Cup the country participated in. The national team’s lack of success comes on the back of a Bundesliga that has struggled to keep up with the Premier League and the failure of individual clubs to invest in the necessary infrastructure to produce players needed to win international tournaments.
At the core of the Bundesliga’s main problems are declining infrastructure, encrusted club structures, and facilities that are often lacking behind those of international competitors. Many of those underlining issues have been pointed out in a previous article, and, at least off the field, the World Cup in 2006 has highlighted that a major tournament can help with many of those issues among the clubs that will host games (an issue that will certainly be addressed in a future piece).
The rebirth of German football after 2006, however, was only possible with, at times, limited Nationalmannschaft reaching the final four of the tournament. The focus in this piece, therefore, will be on what the national team can do in the next 18 months to ensure that, on the field, the Euros can be the sort of success needed to breathe new life into German football.
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