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Joachim Löw in front of the DFB logo - still a familiar sight
Photo: Arne Dedert / dpa
One cannot quite imagine that someone else will be sitting there in a few months.
Who talks about "what is best for the team", who talks about the "team behind the team" and "the deepest conviction that the upheaval in 2019 was absolutely right".
And yet it is like this: Joachim Löw is on a farewell tour, on Thursday he started it in front of the press.
The European Football Championship in June / July will be his last stop before sunset, when "the record coach, the world coach", as DFB President Fritz Keller almost jubilated, will be history for the German national team.
"Fifteen years are almost like an eternity," said Löw, arranging his term of office in the afternoon.
It's really been a very long time that the association and the coach have gone together.
And at the moment everyone is doing their best to sweeten his farewell in every way.
"I'm sure you will play a great European Championship," said Keller.
Whereby playing should be more a matter for the Goretzkas, Kimmichs and Sanés.
The Löw "on the way to their performance zenith" sees a path towards the goal of the European home championship in 2024.
This EM, "which I will then look at from a different perspective," should crown the work that Löw left behind in the summer.
"You weren't inactive," says Bierhoff
The decision to quit has solidified with him in the past two or three weeks, said the national coach, but the foundation for it should have been laid earlier, at the latest after the 6-0 disaster in Seville against the Spaniards last November.
The association also expected this step and was therefore prepared.
"You haven't been idle lately," suggests national team director Oliver Bierhoff, that there have already been preliminary talks that have been suggested in terms of succession from the summer.
The news therefore "did not strike him like lightning."
There are several names as national coach candidates, and the same ones have been mentioned for days.
The DFB employees Stefan Kuntz and Marcus Sorg, Ralf Rangnick, who is eager to talk to himself, the old Löw buddy Hans-Dieter Flick, and of course the journalists tried to lure something out of Keller and Bierhoff, a flick of the tongue, a hint which, in the tradition of Kremlin astrology, one could have read a preference of the DFB.
But apart from the fact that Bierhoff once accidentally said “Marcus Löw” when he meant Marcus Sorg, the bulkheads remained tight: “I will not comment on any candidates here, we have enough experts in Germany who can do that.” In In this regard, Mehmet Scholl, Olaf Thon, Berti Vogts and whatever their names are, who are now speaking up, were actually not inactive in the end.
No one from abroad, no woman
Bierhoff made no secret of that, except that it will probably be a German coach who will lead the team's fortunes in the future.
And when asked whether a woman might also be considered, Bierhoff said, "I'm not going to rule anything out," but his grin said it all.
That can be ruled out.
Keller and Bierhoff emphasized several times that they now have "all the time in the world" to look for Löw's successor, and the association actually seems willing to make the most of this time.
Just like Löw is already playing for time when it comes to the EM squad.
The "kicker" reported that the return of Thomas Müller and Mats Hummels, who had been sorted out by Löw in 2019, was as good as decided.
However, Löw did not leave it that way.
He had Müller, Hummels and Jérôme Boateng "neither opened nor closed the door," emphasized the national coach.
In doing so, he used the opportunity to become fundamental again: With the best will in the world, Löw could not understand that he was alternately portrayed as a “faller” or “stubborn” when asked about the return action by Müller and Co.: “Should be so good you know me by now to know that it doesn't matter to me how I appear in public: I do what I am personally convinced of. "
After that nobody could contradict him in the digital circle.
After all, that was always the most striking character trait of national coach Joachim Löw: he was happy and grateful to forego public advice.
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