“Become a close-knit bunch”
“Dream candidate” Julian Nagelsmann is the new national coach
September 22, 2023, 11:34 a.m
Julian Nagelsmann will look after the German national football team at the home European Championship in 2024. As expected, the former coach of FC Bayern Munich will succeed Hansi Flick and signed a contract until July 31, 2024, as the DFB announced. Former national striker Sandro Wagner and Benjamin Glück will support Nagelsmann as assistant coaches. The 35-year-old Wagner only moved to the DFB in the summer and was actually supposed to work there as an assistant coach for the U20 national team. The ex-Munich player recently looked after the national team on an interim basis together with sports director Rudi Völler and Hannes Wolf in the 2-1 win against France.
“We have a European Championship in our own country. That’s something special – something that happens once every few decades. I subordinate everything to this fact of having a great tournament in a great country,” said Nagelsmann, who was released after his release March was under contract with FC Bayern Munich until July 31, 2026.
“Become a close-knit bunch”
The contract with the record champions, which is said to have brought the 36-year-old around 7 million euros annually, was terminated due to the agreement with the DFB. Nagelsmann is expected to earn 400,000 euros per month at the association. He is “very keen to take on this challenge. The performance in Dortmund (the 2-1 win against runner-up world champions France – editor’s note) was the beginning. We will be a close-knit group next year.”
DFB sports director Rudi Völler said of the decision, which has now passed all DFB committees following an oral agreement at the beginning of the week: “Julian Nagelsmann was our preferred candidate as national coach when the search began. He is not only an absolute football expert, but has already proven in all his positions – at a very young age for a head coach – that he can motivate and inspire a team and the entire environment,” praised Völler, who last led the DFB team after Flick was eliminated in the 2-1 win against Vice world champion France had been looked after on an interim basis. Nagelsmann becomes the youngest national coach in more than 90 years, only the then “Reich Coach” – this is how national coaches in several sports were called during the Weimar Republic and the National Socialist era – Otto Nerz was younger when he took office in 1926.
“Contagious Fire”
“His fire for football is noticeable and contagious – just like with his two assistant coaches Benjamin Glück and Sandro Wagner, whose great energy I was recently able to experience myself,” said Völler in an association statement about Nagelsmann. “With his qualities and personality, he will make a decisive contribution to ensuring that we can all experience a great European Championship in our own country in the summer.”
The new national coach was “our first point of contact,” said DFB President Bernd Neuendorf. “I am very pleased that we have won him over. I am convinced that with him we have found a strong and really convincing leader for our senior national team.” Nagelsmann himself “didn’t have to be convinced at all”. “He gave us the impression from the beginning that he wanted to tackle this task.” Flick’s successor, who is entrusted with the great responsibility for a successful home European Championship from a German perspective, also praised the “great discussions” with the association. Nagelsmann and his management accommodated the DFB on financial issues, said Völler.
Nagelsmann will look after the DFB team, which was recently eliminated in the preliminary round of two World Cups in a row and was sometimes desolate and, above all, unsuccessful in the last months of the Flick era, for the first time on the upcoming trip to the USA: After Kicking off against the USA on October 14th (from 9 p.m. CET, live on RTL) in Hartford in the US state of Connecticut, Germany will play against Gold Cup winners Mexico on October 17th (from 2 a.m. CET) in Philadelphia. On November 21st (from 8:45 p.m.) the German national team will face Austria in Vienna in the last international match before the start of the European Championship year.
At 12 noon, DFB President Bernd Neuendorf and sports director Rudi Völler will introduce the new national coach. You can see the press conference with Julian Nagelsmann live on ntv.