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Joachim Löw in Tirol: In the training camps of the DFB teams, it was often decided how the tournament would turn out later
Photo: Christian Charisius / dpa
The mountains have done it to the DFB.
When a tournament is coming up, national coach Joachim Löw looks for proximity to the Alps.
One could assume that the mountains are closer to the Freiburg Löw than the coast, but since the World Cup in Russia, when the national coach snuggled up to the lantern on the beach promenade in Sochi, you also know how much the sea means to him.
So now Seefeld in Tirol, before Eppan in South Tyrol, even twice, in 2010 and 2018, in between the South Tyrolean Passeier Valley before the 2014 World Cup and Swiss Ticino for the 2016 European Championship. And everywhere velvety air, it smells of freshly felled wood, the lush green the meadows, the snow on the peaks as a panorama background.
If it weren't for the daily compulsory test in front of the DFB training ground, you could forget about Corona for a moment.
And you might think: what can go wrong in such an idyll?
The answer: a lot.
In the past, the training camps of the DFB teams were often watersheds, this was where the decision was made as to what the tournament would be later on.
And it was best when the public had to assume that this team was only attracting misfortune.
It started with Ballack
For example 2010. The national team has settled in the idyllic Eppan in South Tyrol, they are only waiting for their captain Michael Ballack, who still has to contest his cup final for Chelsea in England. The news of the injury Ballack sustained in a duel from opponent Kevin Prince Boateng caused shock waves to the public. Only Löw remained calm and swore his team to a tournament without the leader.
In addition to Sami Khedira, Khedira's Stuttgart team-mate Christian Träsch is also planned as a possible Ballack replacement, but Träsch sustains a capsule injury in a training game against FC Südtirol and has to cancel the World Cup. A few days later, in the last international test match before the World Cup, Heiko Westermann injured himself and was also out of the tournament. The media are rolling, the »Süddeutsche Zeitung« speaks of a »shock«, the SPIEGEL of a »curse« and »unbelievable bad luck with injuries« - Löw comments that Westermann »played an essential role in our team at the World Cup«. The "Tagesspiegel" headlines: "Germany limps."
Träsch and Westermann as bearers of hope: In view of the exciting World Cup that Löw's youngsters then delivered in South Africa, it's hard to imagine.
Khedira, Lahm, Özil, Müller, Boateng, those were the heroes.
Nobody limped anymore.
Nobody spoke any more of Träsch and Westermann, many not even of Ballack.
Injuries, mobbing, PR disasters
Four years later, the team is quartered again in South Tyrol, in Sankt Leonhard in the Passeier Valley, but this holy Leonhard was really not one who held his hand protectively over the Löw-Elf. On the media day, when journalists traditionally have the opportunity to speak to the players in the team quarters, there is tension. Manuel Neuer, Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger arrived in a bad state; they will not be able to take part in a single unit on the field during the entire training camp. The question of whether the Bayern trio will be fit in time for the tournament is superimposed on the reporting from the Passeiertal over the entire time.
Lukas Podolski, who has just been relegated with 1. FC Köln, pushes a »Bild« reporter into the swimming pool, which at least Podolski and the reporter find funny, but the topic of the day is different: »Bild« reported the evening before That Dortmund's Kevin Großkreutz, out of frustration over the cup final lost against Bayern, in the lobby of a Berlin hotel, let's call it poked about.
Großkreutz, no man of the polished word, has to answer questions from the fully assembled football press on media day.
The press department of the DFB has ordered an employee directly to Großkreutz as a minder who controls what the reporters ask and what Großkreutz is allowed to say.
Kleinlauter has probably never gone to the tournament.
Storm outside, calm inside
This tour continues: The press reports that the national coach had to surrender his driver's license due to repeated frenzy. Lars Bender is injured and has to cancel the camp and the World Cup, and as if that weren't enough, the motorsport driver Pascal Wehrlein caused an accident while the sponsor was on a joyride with national players when he hit a passerby with his car and seriously injured him. DFB manager Oliver Bierhoff and Mercedes marketing woman Claudia Merzbach have to sit with pale faces in front of the press instead of beaming PR reports - while the responsible investigator of the Bolzano police, inspector Johann Ramoser, enjoys the sudden media attention. Nothing seems to be going well at this training camp, and the weather is also poor. The tournament, it can't turn out to be anything.
These are exactly the days that contributed to this team becoming world champions a few weeks later.
While the public paints black, the team is literally welded together during sauna evenings.
The rivalry between the Bayern players and Dortmund, which two years earlier had weighed on the training camp in Tourettes, France, will be buried these days.
Let's go to Brazil, to Campo Bahia.
Let's go, and in the end Kevin Großkreutz is also world champion.
Everything was different in 2018
The only training camp where no one was injured, and it seemed very quiet to the outside world, was the one in Eppan in 2018.
Then it went to Russia, and the team imploded, the personality Mesut Özil, kept under cover for weeks, all the played harmony turned out to be wrong.
So far it is still peaceful in Seefeld.
But the new hierarchy with the returnees Mats Hummels and Thomas Müller, the quarantine regulations for the England professionals, maybe this training camp will also develop its special stimulating climate.
Quiet is not always the first civic duty, that also and especially applies in the mountains.
