The hero of six titles in 2020 with Bayern, Hansi Flick, failed to get his message to the entire German team and failed in his mission to succeed the iconic coach Joachim Löw and the course of one Germany is in free fall since 2018.
The humiliating defeat (4-1) against Japan in a friendly match on Saturday, the fourth in five games, marked the point of no return for Germany, whose federation dismissed the Bavarian coach before the friendly. game on Tuesday against world runners-up France.
A rare decision in Germany, but not surprising, because Flick has no support from the fans, while the criticism against the coach increased in the press.
The “Hansi out!” can be heard in the stadium after the fourth Japanese goal, while Lothar Matthäus, the authoritative voice of German football, doubts whether the 58-year-old coach can be kept.
The failed selection process for Flick was symbolized by the elimination in the first round of the World Cup in Qatar in December, for the second time in a row.
When he arrived in the summer of Europe in 2021, he was therefore recognized for his good relationship with the players, maintaining a constant and constructive dialogue with them, a method that he tried to maintain in all seasons as a coach, after a short career as a player..
He came to wear the jersey of Bayern, where he was a semi-finalist in the European Cup in 1990.
“He attached great importance to communication (with the players) on and off the field of play,” said the captain of the German team, Manuel Neuer, in an autobiography of the coach, ‘Im Moment’ (‘For the moment’) , released in September 2022.
Neuer has known Flick for over a decade. He will meet him again at Bayern, as Niko Kovac’s assistant, at the beginning of a season in 2019-2020, which will change his career.
Dialogue
In the fall of Europe in 2019, with Bayern at the bottom of the Bundesliga seasons after a difficult defeat in Frankfurt (5-1), this coach who claims to be an admirer of Arrigo Sacchi and Arsène Wenger, called to the rescue, named after the Kovac post.
He does not hesitate to dialogue, to include all the players in his project, far from imposing his way of looking at football.
And the method worked: after some uninspiring starts (two defeats in the first six games), he tied the successes and convinced the leaders to keep trusting him even though he was appointed on an interim basis.
It continues until the Christmas holidays, then until the end of the season, which is signed from April to June 2023.
Then, after being imprisoned in the second quarter of 2020, their months of greatest glory will come: Bundesliga champion at the end of June, Cup winner at the beginning of July, Champions League winner at the end of August. Recreate Bayern’s historic treble in 2013 with Jupp Heynckes.
And to this he added three other possible titles, the German Super Cup, the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup, for an unprecedented sextet.
Dialogue and calm, he also knows how to be inflexible, as in the spring of 2021, when he announced his intention to break his contract, after months of disagreements with Bayern’s sports director Hasan Salihamidzic, although he did not say publicly that this was the reason. when he left..
Appointed a few weeks ago as the successor of Joachim Löw (2006-2021) at the head of the Mannschaft, Flick applied the same approach to the players, many of whom he got to know well after coaching them at Bayern.
But the results are inconsistent. Defeated by Belgium (3-2), Poland (1-0), Colombia (2-0) and now Japan, the Germans have only beaten Peru since their traumatic World Cup elimination.
On the same Saturday, Hansi Flick looked strong to bring the situation forward to Euro 2024. However, due to events, the German Federation did not share that opinion.
