DFB intensifies search for new women team coach ahead of critical encounters

 

By Ulrike John, dpa I Wednesday, Feb.21, 2024

 

BERLIN – The German Football Federation (DFB) is prepared for the scenario of having to appoint a women’s national team coach on short notice to take over from caretaker Horst Hrubesch.

Germany plays France in the Nations League semi-finals on Friday and either the final or third place match next Wednesday. They will qualify for the Paris Olympics if they reach the final or finish third. But they will miss the Games if they come forth which could end Hrubesch’s term.

“If the two games go differently, which I don’t like to talk about two days before a very, very important game, then we will have done our job and be able to act,” women’s team sporting director Nia Künzer said on Wednesday.

“When the time comes we will comment on it. The scenarios are clear and we are prepared for anything.”

Hrubesch has said he would coach the team until the Olympics if they qualify, but only be available for a transitional period at best if they miss the Games.

The next matches after the Nations League Finals are in April, the start of Euro 2025 qualifying.

The German women are without a head coach since the DFB parted ways with Martina Voss-Tecklenburg in November. Hrubesch started the caretaker job in October, when Voss-Tecklenburg was on sick leave, and led them to the Nations League Finals.

The list of potential candidates is small, especially from within women’s football. I don’t currently see a German-speaking woman in the coaching position who is so obvious that you can’t get past her,” former DFB national teams director Joti Chatzialexiou told news portal t-online.

He said that Chelsea coach Emma Hayes would have been a candidate but she will now take over the US women’s team. Swede Pia Sundhage is now in Switzerland.

The Frankfurter Rundschau daily said that the DFB has met with Jills Ellis who led the US to World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019.

The team has always had a German coach up to now, and mostly a woman. But apart from Marie-Louise Eta, assistant at men’s Bundesliga side Union Berlin, there no real candidates.

Christian Wück has made a name for himself within the DFB but a transition from the men to the women is rare.

“Only competence counts. That’s why I would still say: it doesn’t really matter – but then my mind says: okay, we basically want to put women in positions and push them,” former German international Kim Kulig told dpa. “So it’s always a dichotomy.”