FRANKFURT, June 19 (AP): Firing Germany coach Hansi Flick is out of the question despite the team’s lack of recent wins, the German soccer federation’s sporting director, Rudi Völler, said Sunday.
Germany’s 1-0 loss to Poland in a friendly on Friday was the third game in a row without a win as Flick experiments with his squad with a year to go until Germany hosts the European Championship.
Some fans and commentators have voiced frustration at the apparent lack of progress since exiting the World Cup in the group stage last year.
“Hansi Flick will obviously remain the coach,” Völler said ahead of the last of three June friendlies on Tuesday against Colombia. “We all agree that Hansi is exactly the right coach to play a good European Championship.”
Still, Völler admitted Germany needs to do more to win back fans’ confidence.
“Obviously we want to win, we want to try some things out, but at the same time inspire people. This isn’t a friendly game and it isn’t a qualifying game, it’s rather a game where we want to show the fans that they can count on us,” he said. “We are at the end of a long season, we are tired and the legs are heavy. The couple of percent that were missing in some situations or other in Poland, we have to deliver those once again now.”
Flick won the Champions League with Bayern Munich before taking the Germany job in 2021 to replace Joachim Löw after a disappointing European Championship campaign. He started with a run of eight wins as Germany breezed through World Cup qualifying, but Flick’s team has won just four of 15 since then against Italy, Oman, Costa Rica and Peru.
