Germany

Nagelsmann must revive Germany and unite a nation but are the tools lacking? | Andy Brassell

22-Sep-2023 16:36:25 | The Guardian

Replacement for Hansi Flick has little time and few friendlies but win over France suggests potential exists for improvement

Germany want, says Julian Nagelsmann, “to take an approach that isn’t typical for a crisis”. After months and even years of stodge and with a home tournament on the horizon, the new coach is right to assume that patience and back-to-basics aren’t on the menu. Before hosting Euro 2024 Germany, it seems, just want to have fun.

This should be music to the ears of a nation of football fans turned off their national team not just by lacklustre displays – and successive failures at World Cup 2018, Euro 2020 and the latest World Cup – but by disorganisation and dispute within the Deutscher Fussball-Bund (DFB), the game’s governing body. Germany exited the 2022 World Cup at the group stage but already it was as if the tournament wasn’t happening back home, with few public screenings – reflective of antipathy about the hosts Qatar among fans but also of the squad’s perceived lack of personality, both in confronting human-rights issues and in performances.