“A mistake – how stupid”
Voss-Tecklenburg “completely collapsed” before DFB exit
November 20, 2023, 2:50 p.m
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg led the German women’s national soccer team to the European Championship final, and a year later she was responsible for the World Cup disaster as national coach. After months of sometimes irritating hang-ups, she is leaving the DFB. Now she talks about a difficult time.
Former national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg spoke for the first time about her psychological problems after the German footballers’ exit from the World Cup and also admitted mistakes. A feeling of pressure on the chest, panic attacks and insomnia were the result, said the 55-year-old in a ZDF interview about internal and public criticism: “I basically collapsed completely.” The fears, insecurity and emptiness in her head became increasingly stronger – almost as if the plug had been pulled from me.
The German Football Association announced at the beginning of September that Voss-Tecklenburg was ill. After a long stalemate, the DFB appointed Horst Hrubesch as interim coach for the German women, who had failed in the preliminary round of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The DFB terminated the contract with Voss-Tecklenburg, which runs until 2025, at the beginning of the month.
“How stupid – mistake”
Several national players were annoyed by the hanging game: “It gives me a few question marks, of course. I would have wished for something different. To say: Okay, let’s first clarify what happened at the World Cup,” said key player Lena Oberdorf in October at the team meeting in Frankfurt. Teammate Sara Doorsoun seconded: “She made exactly the right choice of words. It’s her opinion and it’s completely legitimate that she conveys it to the outside world.”
Interim coach Hrubesch said he “had no contact with her.” Britta Carlson is also there, who has been a member of the functional team for a long time as an assistant trainer and has an insight. “The DFB will then have to decide how this is regulated. That’s not my beer now.”
Voss-Tecklenburg had also recently attracted criticism because she gave two lectures even though she had not yet been reported as healthy again by the DFB at the time. “I then made the public appearances. In retrospect you can say: How stupid – mistake,” said Voss-Tecklenburg now. She took a vacation and the rest of the year’s vacation “in order to get completely healthy, to simply use these weeks again, to come back and to be able to take part in life again.” A joint press release was not made at the time for various reasons.
“I was sick and I didn’t know how long this process would take. I realized that I just have to be there for myself now,” said Voss-Tecklenburg in the interview about the time before. She noticed: “My head is empty. I’m just crying. I’m not able to think constructively.” Her doctor’s advice was clear: to withdraw first in order to minimize the risk of depressive episodes.
“I wasn’t feeling well before the World Cup”
“I wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t feeling well before the World Cup,” said Voss-Tecklenburg. The vice-European champions had already weakened in the test matches before Australia. After the World Cup ended, she tried to lift the players up again and give them courage. “Everyone somehow tried to function to a certain extent, to do justice to their task.” But the mood was of course extremely depressing, said Voss-Tecklenburg. That hasn’t changed at home either.
After several meetings with the coaching staff, she was nagging at the thought of whether she was still the right person for the position – “as a coach, as a person, as a human being.” None of the players around captain Alexandra Popp have publicly advocated for the former national coach to return.