National coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg has ruled out resigning. “I’ve never run away when things get difficult,” said the 55-year-old on Saturday morning at the final press conference of the German Football Association (DFB) in Wyong. She will be “persistent and stay”.
At the same time, she expressed the “firm will to take the next steps in German football” with everyone involved. DFB President Bernd Neuendorf had previously expressed his confidence in her, despite her early retirement from the World Cup. In the afternoon, the first planes took off from Australia, which were to fly the team home from Sydney in small groups.
On Thursday, the DFB selection at the World Cup, which continues on Saturday with the round of 16, was already over after the preliminary round. In the coming “two to three” weeks, Joti Chatzialexiou, the sporting director of the national teams, announced that a “comprehensive analysis” of the events and results would take place on the DFB campus in Frankfurt. He said it was necessary to “come down for a few days” and then start troubleshooting “so that we avoid them in the future.”
Reasons for failure should be worked through
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg described the disappointing performance as “a tough experience, but only that will get you further in the game and in life”. A 1-1 draw in the last group game was not enough to advance as Colombia and Morocco each scored six points, two more than Germany, who had originally intended to play for the title. The national coach defended the ambitious goal. It would have been “not credible” to want to achieve less than second at the European Championships.
The reasons for the failure are complex. They would now be processed. There has never been a “keep it up” under her leadership, not even after last year’s success at the European Championships in England. “Everyone worked 24 hours here and tried everything,” she said, “it was all about the details.” These included, among other things, the one-dimensional offensive efforts that were almost entirely tailored to striker Alexandra Popp; the captain scored four goals.
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Martina Voss-Tecklenburg commented extensively on allegations that were formulated in the Saturday edition of the “Bild” newspaper and dealt with rifts between her and the team. Among other things, according to the report, players complained about a lack of communication and the choice of accommodation in the Australian provinces. Martina Voss-Tecklenburg countered the anonymously quoted allegations.
She reported that she and her support staff had always exchanged extensive information with the players “as in previous years”: “We talk to each other a lot.” There is a high degree of self-criticism. She has “complete trust” in the players and the tone is “open”. Their trust is mutual, the players are characterized by the fact that they value “honesty” and they “didn’t experience that” which, according to the “Bild” report, led to discord.
Chatzialexiou supported her. He “sat down” with the players’ council and nothing of the sort was communicated to him from this group. He will now sit down with several players in Germany. It’s not “about looking for excuses, but about looking for reasons” for the historically poor performance. For the first time in World Cup history, the German women, who were world champions twice (2003 and 2007), missed out on making it into the knockout phase.
Both the national coach and Chatzialexiou defended the decision to set up a base camp for the tournament in Wyong, around 100 kilometers outside of Sydney. “I still stand by it,” said Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, who personally inspected the hotel twice in the spring. They had “meticulously weighed up between advantages and disadvantages”.
At a hotel in a big city, the distances to the training grounds were longer and the quality of sleep could have suffered from the ambient noise. “There was no optimal solution,” said Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, who was willing to take a closer look at the deficits of the place to stay afterwards, “we’ll take up these questions”.
Chatzialexiou said that the quarters were chosen “jointly” and that the team council was also involved. “It’s hard to please everyone in a squad of 23,” he said. In the past few weeks, players had expressed dissatisfaction with the standard and the location of the hotel, among other things, the term “wasteland” was mentioned.
Chatzialexiou acknowledged that the small town had the downside of lacking “cafes and ice cream parlors” to get out in his free time. But first and foremost, as his statement also made clear, the DFB team was in Australia to play football and not to do sightseeing. It’s finally over with both since Saturday.