Frenchman calls for a restart
Former FCB star Lizarazu sees little hope for the DFB
September 11, 2023, 11:19 a.m
Bixente Lizarazu is one of the great players in Bayern history. He played for the record champions for almost ten years, between 1997 and 2006. Then he slowly disappears from the public and rarely speaks out. Now he is giving German football a devastating report.
Former Bundesliga professional Bixente Lizarazu has made a clear assessment of the state of the German national football team. “Since the 2014 World Cup, i.e. for almost ten years, the German team has been languishing,” said the 53-year-old former world and European champion from France in an interview with the Sportbuzzer.de portal. “Now their entire model has to be redesigned, there have to be changes in the structures, there has to be something new in youth work,” advised Lizarazu.
He moved from Athletic Bilbao to FC Bayern in the summer of 1997. In Munich he also experienced the end of his career in the summer of 2006 – after a five-month excursion to Olympique Marseille from July 2004 to the beginning of January 2005. Lizarazu won in 1988 with the Équipe tricolore, which will face the seriously troubled German team in Dortmund this Tuesday the World Cup and 2000 the European Championship title – together with the current French national coach Didier Deschamps.
Lizarazu warns Völler about France strikers
“As long as Didier Deschamps is the national coach, you can be sure that France will take every game seriously, no matter what the opponent is, whether it’s a World Cup final or a friendly,” Lizarazu replied when asked whether the French team would play against Germany will take seriously. Deschamps was already equipped with a winning mentality as a player. “As a coach, his players follow him blindly,” said Lizarazu.
After parting ways with Hansi Flick as a result of the 4-1 defeat against Japan on Saturday in Wolfsburg, the German team will be temporarily looked after by DFB sports director Rudi Völler as team boss. And Lizarazu gave a few tips. “If players like Niklas Süle or Nico Schlotterbeck play, they will have a very difficult time against France’s offensive,” he said. He didn’t know then that his father-to-be, Süle, would be leaving the national team early. Good positional play is just as important as experience, “but these attributes will not be enough against France. On a good day, these strikers are unstoppable,” he emphasized, referring to Kylian Mbappé, Randal Kolo Muani, Kingsley Coman and Ousmane Dembélé.