FC Bayern must continue to look for a new coach: Julian Nagelsmann will remain national coach until 2026. Who will be Tuchel's successor? The candidates are becoming fewer.
Julian Nagelsmann will not be the coach of FC Bayern! As the DFB confirmed on Friday morning, the national coach is extending his contract until 2026. The contract would have expired at the end of July this year, i.e. after the European Championships. Nagelsmann is now expected to look after the DFB team up to and including the 2026 World Cup in the USA, Mexico and Canada.
Nagelsmann says about his extension: “It’s a decision of the heart. It is a great honor to be able to coach the national team and work with the best players in the country. With successful, passionate performances we have the chance to inspire an entire country. The two victories against France and the Netherlands in March provided a foretaste of this. I was very touched by the enthusiasm of the fans. We now want to play a successful home European Championship together, we are all passionate about it. Afterwards, I and my coaching team are really looking forward to the challenge of a World Cup.”
Nagelsmann is also not interested in asking which candidates FC Bayern now have left
And who will be Tuchel's successor? Nagelsmann is off the list, the actual preferred candidate Xabi Alonso has already announced that he will stay at Bayer Leverkusen. Roberto De Zerbi (Brighton & Hove Albion), Unai Emery (Aston Villa) and Ralf Rangnick (Austria national coach) are also being traded.
Antonio Conte, Zinédine Zidane and Hansi Flick, who are currently without a club, are also considered possible solutions.
Völler raves about Nagelsmann: “He is an outstanding trainer, a tactical fox”
Rudi Völler, director of the men's national team, said about Nagelsmann's extension: “We were absolutely convinced of Julian Nagelsmann even before the recent successful international matches. But they showed once again what enthusiasm Julian and his team can rekindle in Germany. He is an outstanding coach, a tactical expert who not only has great football knowledge, but can infect and inspire every player with his passion. He burns for the national team and for success. I am very pleased that we will continue on this path together after the home European Championships.”
Nagelsmann and the DFB want to play a successful home European Championship together. But the collaboration shouldn't end there. Nagelsmann would also have had the opportunity to become Thomas Tuchel's successor for the new season and thus return to FC Bayern.
Nagelsmann is not returning to FC Bayern
According to information from
fussball.news
, sports director Max Eberl and Nagelsmann even agreed to work together. Nagelsmann's advisor Volker Struth announced in the
Spielmacher
podcast : “That will be decided in the next few days. That will be decided soon. In the next five, six, seven days.” Apparently the concerns of Nagelsmann, who heard about the internal reservations, and possibly also of FC Bayern were ultimately too great - hence the decision in favor of the DFB.
In the summer of 2021, Nagelsmann moved from RB Leipzig to FC Bayern for around 25 million euros. He was given a five-year contract and received an annual salary of a reported eight million euros. After less than two years, in March 2023, Nagelsmann was released and Thomas Tuchel was signed. In September 2023, the record champions paid Nagelsmann a severance payment of 1.5 million euros; instead, the Munich team waived a transfer fee in the wake of Nagelsmann's signature with the DFB. Extrapolated, the coach already cost FC Bayern almost 40 million euros. Not least because of this, a return was viewed critically.