Wednesday 4 August 2021
Höwedes as team manager
Flick brings a World Cup champion to his team
For Joachim Loew, the return of the two world champions from the European Championship did not bear fruit, and the tournament ended disappointingly again. Now the third champion of Rio will return to the German Federation and strengthen the team off the field. She is the first big personality of the new national coach.
Hansi Flick brings former world champion Benedict Howedes to his squad for his new start as a national football coach. The 33-year-old will initially gain experience as a manager in training. The ex-Schalke captain must pass all areas of team management. At least until the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Hovedes should act as “a link between management and the team”. Howedes ended his career after stints at Juventus Turin and Lokomotiv Moscow. The defender celebrated his World Cup title alongside Flick in 2014, and in Brazil he did not miss a minute on his way to the biggest victory for the national team in the past 30 years.
Meanwhile, Höwedes will attend the UEFA-organised Management Symposium from mid-October, which has already been attended by Simon Rolfes and Sebastian Kehl. The training program aims to provide senior players with the opportunity to switch to leadership roles outside the field after their active career. This takes a total of two years. Rolfes and Kehl now occupy responsible positions in the Bundesliga: Keel is head of the licensed players department at Borussia Dortmund, and Rolfes is sporting director at Bayer Leverkusen.
He is “very happy to return to the national team in a new position and to participate in all operations related to the DFB team. I want to learn how to manage the selection team – and at the same time share my experience with the team and the team.” Passed behind the team, Hoedes quoted in a statement from Al Ittihad: “We have a great team with a lot of potential. I’m so proud to be a part of it again now.”
Last year, Howides, who played his last 44 caps on March 26, 2017 in a 4-1 win in Azerbaijan, was the coach of the national under-21 team.
Whether Höwedes is now being prepared for larger assignments at the DFB, as suggested, is speculation. But Oliver Bierhoff, today’s DFB manager, started his career as a DFB official in 2004 as a team manager jointly with new national coach Jürgen Klinsmann. Bierhoff, controversial since the World Cup bankruptcy in 2018 and the erosion of public perception of the national team that has dragged on for years, still has a contract with the federation until 2024. Now Bierhoff has announced for the first time that it was his “objective, also to manage the increasingly successful former national players and take advantage of For the future of German football and the leadership of the national team, it is important that we show our national players avenues and help them how to also succeed in management.”
Flick wants to “inspire again”
The official start of Hansi Flick’s job as successor to Joachim Löw was on August 1, and on August 10 he will be introduced as a national coach at the DFB. After that, he will outline his plans in detail at a press conference in Frankfurt. Former assistant Loew, who has won seven titles with Bayern Munich in the past year and a half, should lead the national team to the top after two bad tournaments.
Flick, 56, said, “For me, a national coach is a commitment, a huge responsibility. I’m really looking forward to it. I’m really going to do my best, all in order to play exciting football again.” On Sunday in a video posted by the German Football Association. “We want to play great football for Germany, people inspire attacking football,” Flick said. His contract runs until after the European Championship in 2024.
Flick started his new job with clear instructions to the team, support staff, and association. “Everyone has to push their limits,” Flick said. “We have to create an atmosphere to make this team.” His first goal was to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar by the end of the year. “It should be clear to everyone that we faced challenges in the seven matches,” Flick said. “We want to be the first to survive from the group.”
In the past few weeks, Flick has already put his first track in the background, for example by hiring Danny Rolle as another assistant coach alongside Marcus Sorge. He also has to name a successor to goalkeeper coach Andreas Kopke, who prematurely left the German Football Association after 17 years with Low. Flick’s first sports mission will be to get the Qatar World Cup ticket. There are still seven qualifying matches in the program through the end of the year. The match starts in September against Liechtenstein in St. Gallen (2), in Stuttgart against Armenia (5) and against Iceland in Reykjavik (8).