It seems to be growing slowly. The good atmosphere around the national team has a lot to do with what felt like a change and a real new start. This is actually a cause for joy. But all of this also shows that a lot of time has been wasted pointlessly in recent years!
One day they will also sit together in good company at the DFB and admit that the last few years have actually been wasted. Because if the association hadn’t had so many problems of its own, the move from Jogi Löw to another national coach would have happened much earlier. And, as we now know at the latest, that would have been the best for everyone involved. Now you look back on five, six, seven years of stagnation and personal dismantling and you have to shamefully realize that you have done a lot of damage to German football.
It won’t be overnight that everything will be all right again quickly, but it may be faster than you thought until a few days ago. And the mood flag will soon turn again for the world champion coach Joachim Löw. At the moment, many football fans in the country are still mad at the former national coach. But in the near future, the man from Breisgau will again be received with standing ovations in TV shows – and rightly so. After all, he led the national team to the world title in 2014. No German football fan will ever forget this special moment. But he should have saved himself (at least) the last five years after leaving the EM 2016 (er).
The sun come’s out
These were fatal years of self-deception that not only harmed the DFB and Jogi Löw, but also robbed an entire generation of footballers from an honest and promising perspective. Because one must not forget: Even if the competition has never enjoyed such a high status, Germany was nevertheless the winner of the last FIFA Confederations Cup 2017 with a young team. And the U21s won the European Championship in 2017 and 2021. Title and was in the final against Spain in 2019. So the potential for more was definitely there – only it was never used properly.
Ben Redelings is a passionate “chronicler of football madness” and a supporter of the glorious VfL Bochum. The bestselling author and comedian lives in the Ruhr area and maintains his legendary treasure trove of anecdotes. For ntv.de he writes down the most exciting and funniest stories on Mondays and Saturdays. More information about Ben Redelings, his current dates and his book with the best columns (“Between Puff and Barcelona”) can be found on his website www.scudetto.de.
All that doesn’t help anymore: Time can’t be turned back. But now the thick soup around the DFB team finally seems to dissolve. The clouds disappear and slowly the sun comes out again. In retrospect, however, the last few years seem even more gloomy and it is finally clear that one should have listened to the voices much earlier that warned at the time that there was no good and successful way out of the impasse – into which the DFB is going and Jogi Löw himself had lost – would give more.
All those involved and fans are now enjoying this real new start and upheaval all the more intensely. There will certainly be setbacks again in the coming months, but these will be endured with a lot more sense of community and togetherness. As bitter as this last conclusion on the Löw era is: The fatal self-deception should have ended much earlier because it dug deep trenches in the German fan base, which now have to be filled in again with great effort. There is a lot of work waiting for Hansi Flick and his team – but at least they can be sure that they will be given some time for it. Time that Joachim Löw hasn’t had for a long time.
.