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National coach of the U21s since 2016: Stefan Kuntz
Photo: Marton Monus / dpa
A well-known football concept is "the handwriting of the coach".
Can the layperson also recognize how a coach has hired his team, what he has trained with her, what is particularly important to him?
If you can see a coach's handwriting on the field, that's usually a good sign.
Anyone who has followed the international matches of the German U21 team during the European Championship that has just ended will have noticed things that particularly distinguished the team: team spirit, willingness to run, high quality in the finish.
That is the signature of trainer Stefan Kuntz.
On Sunday evening, Kuntz's U21 juniors were crowned European champions, and it was 1-0 in the final against Portugal.
It is a surprising triumph, as the current U21 year is not considered to be the very best.
It is so surprising that by the day of the final not even the amount of the bonus for the players was determined, the selection players would not have made any demands before the tournament, said DFB sporting director Joti Chatzialexiou.
Now everyone should receive 35,000 euros.
The bonus was worked hard, the team grew from game to game.
Against Denmark in the quarter-finals they only managed to advance on penalties, against the Netherlands the team was already in the lead after 30 seconds, and now, at the end against Portugal, both teams showed good football, but the winners of the DFB offspring thanks to the Hit by Lukas Nmecha.
The DFB already triumphed at the U21 European Championship in 2017, in 2019 it was in the final, now the next title has followed.
The coach at all three tournaments was called Stefan Kuntz, and after each of the three tournaments it was found that there was a team on the field that also deserves such a name, one that works for each other, drives each other to peak performance and with theirs Joy takes the audience with it.
That too is Kuntz's handwriting.
After the win against Portugal, the U21 coach told how he last motivated his team, his hair from the beer shower still wet. They should play with "lion hearts", he told them, they should be courageous and have "eagle eyes", so they should watch the game constantly. And, according to Kuntz, they should act like a "gang of hyenas." "Nobody likes hyenas, but they always get what they want in the end," said Kuntz, and he also admitted that some players had to laugh at his animal pictures.
Kuntz, now 58, is popular with young players with his relaxed manner.
Three finals in three tournaments, two wins - that's no longer a coincidence.
DFB director Oliver Bierhoff says that Kuntz is a strong communicator, and the communicator has now again managed to form a team in a short time that is getting stronger from day to day.
A real tournament team.
It is not surprising that Kuntz's predecessor in the U21 junior division was Horst Hrubesch, who proceeded in a very similar manner when leading his team.
Hoeneß on Kuntz: "Foreman for the team"
At Kuntz it was often the case that he created an atmosphere of togetherness in a team around a few strong individual talents. In 2017 he had Serge Gnabry and Maximilian Arnold as fixed points, two years ago it was Florian Neuhaus and Robin Koch, this time Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen and Wolfsburg's Ridle Baku, who after 14 goals in the last Bundesliga season is probably also a good right-back would have been for the A-team of national coach Joachim Löw. But now he was part of the U21 juniors, in the final he prepared the winning goal.
The majority of the team, however, has not yet been known to a larger public even in Germany: Whether captain Arne Maier, who was loaned from Hertha BSC to Bielefeld, or regular goalkeeper Finn Dahmen, who was number two at Mainz 05 last season (and also at the request of the DFB got two missions at the end of the season). Kuntz formed a winning team from what was actually an average team.
As an active player, the 1996 European champion was once described as an “outstanding, intelligent footballer” by the former Bayern boss Uli Hoeneß, as someone who is always completely exhausted. Kuntz was "a striker who, despite all his egoism, initially remained a foreman for the team," said Hoeneß. If you see the DFB age groups trained by Kuntz play today, you can also recognize the player Kuntz in them. The team player who is now a team builder.
But Stefan Kuntz was not always a coach who was cheered.
He once worked as a coach for Waldhof Mannheim and could not save the team from relegation.
At LR Ahlen, Kuntz held out a total of 13 competitive games in 2003, with an average of one point per game, he was dismissed again.
In 2005, he said that being a trainer did not offer him “one hundred percent fulfillment”, and as a trainer he also lacked “the asshole gene”.
New team for the Olympics
After the release in Ahlen, it took 13 years before Kuntz was supposed to return to the coaching position. It was a certain Hansi Flick who hired Kuntz in his role as DFB sports director in 2016 and made him the U21 national coach. Both had long talked about the alignment of the substructure at a meeting of the European champions in Paris in 1996. After that, Flick found that Kuntz would be the perfect coach for the job. And the results prove him right: the missing "asshole gene" may be his secret.
That flick will succeed Löw as national coach after the EM.
At the end of March it was still said that Kuntz was a possible candidate.
But when it became increasingly clear how much Flick had fallen out with Hasan Salihamidžić in Munich, the DFB fully relied on him.
Kuntz never publicly claimed the position of national coach.
These days he said he was "in the right place at the right time."
Everything would fit, he with the U21, and the U21 with him.
This is a godsend for the DFB.
Because a new major project is already waiting in July: the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Kuntz will compete in Japan with a completely different team than last time at the European Championships. Born in 1997 and younger players are eligible to play, and three professionals who are older are allowed per 18-man squad. Max Kruse is considered a possible candidate. By June 29th at the latest, Kuntz has to announce his line-up, his brand new team. He then has to merge it in a short time. But after all that you now know about Stefan Kuntz, you can assume that he will manage it.