Sammer Critiques Bierhoff Amid Leadership Debate in German Football
Matthias Sammer has launched a sharp counterattack on Oliver Bierhoff in the middle of Germany’s renewed soul-searching over leadership and personality in the national team.
Bierhoff, who served as DFB team manager from 2004 to 2022, had recently complained in an interview with kicker that the current side lacks experienced leaders and “outstanding personalities with great individual strengths”.
Sammer was having none of it.
Speaking on Sky, the 1996 European champion reminded viewers that it was Bierhoff himself who once championed a very different model. “It wasn't long ago that he was also saying we need flat hierarchies in Germany,” Sammer pointed out.
He stressed that he has always argued for a mix of “leaders, team players and individualists” within a squad. If everyone is treated identically, he warned, you cannot be surprised when strong characters disappear.
“If you want to treat them all the same, in the dressing room, on the pitch, then we shouldn't be complaining today or saying we are missing a few characters,” Sammer said.
For Sammer, the responsibility for that development lies partly with Bierhoff’s long spell in charge. “As the man in charge from 2004 to 2022, Bierhoff must be held accountable for that to some extent,” he insisted.
Sammer recalled his own early days at the DFB. “I came into the association in 2006 and in 2007 I asked myself the question: something isn't right here. Just that, not right or wrong. And then people asked me, why? I say, we're all the same. They're all lovely and nice and that's great, but we're not at a pony farm here. This is elite sport, things get rough at times. It has to kick off in training sometimes, it has to kick off in the dressing room sometimes.”
The 59-year-old went even further, calling the idea of flat hierarchies in elite team sport “one of the biggest mistakes” ever made. His verdict: “It's a catastrophe.”
“Mega guy” Klopp ignites newcomers at DFB camp
While the debate over leadership rages on, the new man on the touchline is already reshaping the mood.
Jürgen Klopp has barely started his work with the national team, but the first-timers in the DFB camp in Herzogenaurach are already under his spell.
“You feel like you'd walk through fire for him,” said Freiburg’s Philipp Treu, who described the new national coach as “a mega guy”.
Klopp’s debut camp is wide open. Treu is one of several fresh faces handed a chance ahead of Thursday’s Nations League opener in the Netherlands (8.45pm). Bambase Conte, Yannik Engelhardt, Max Rosenfelder, Hennes Behrens and Younes Ebnoutalib are also in Herzogenaurach as the team prepares with partner adidas.
Ebnoutalib summed up Klopp’s core demand in one sentence: “That we represent the German national team with pride,” he said before Tuesday afternoon’s training session. “That we step up, that even when things aren't going well, we give everything.”
The Eintracht Frankfurt attacker had another option. He could have chosen to represent Morocco. The call from Klopp settled it.
“But: When Klopp calls, you have to go. He is one of the best coaches in the world, there is definitely positive energy,” Ebnoutalib explained.
Rosenfelder, Treu’s Freiburg team-mate, feels the same pull. Klopp brings “a lot of charisma”, the centre-back noted. “Of course you have huge respect, but in conversations he is very nice, very likeable and makes you feel involved.”
For Rosenfelder, these first days with the DFB are about soaking everything up. “I want to take in everything. I'm just really up for it.”
Treu, eyeing the open right-back position, set out his own mission statement in simple terms. “I want to show who I am,” said the defender, who names Philipp Lahm as his role model. “You can always rely on me.” If the chance comes, he promised to “leave my heart on the pitch and always give it everything”.
Sammer’s verdict on Klopp: clear plan, no miracles
The man who so fiercely criticised Bierhoff is far more optimistic about Klopp’s impact.
“I recognise that he has an absolute plan,” Sammer said on the Sky show “Sammer & Basile – der Hagedorn-Talk”. “You can always discuss his way of organising things, but it follows a plan.”
For Sammer, that plan is about more than tactics. His “great hope” is that Klopp’s Germany will “give us back an identity that we urgently need”.
Klopp takes over after the World Cup debacle and the end of Julian Nagelsmann’s tenure. On Tuesday, he led his first full training session in Herzogenaurach. On Thursday night in Amsterdam, he will make his debut as Germany head coach against the Netherlands.
Sammer, though, sounded a note of caution. No saviour, no magic wand.
“He can't work miracles, rather it is always about making it understandable too – through his personality and his experience as a coach – that this may also need a bit of time,” he said.
Klopp already radiates enthusiasm. “He seems euphoric – already – and that affects the people and the team too,” Sammer observed. “But at some point, euphoria alone won't get you anywhere.”
The question now is whether Klopp’s plan, his charisma and that raw early energy can turn a fractured era into a new identity for Germany – and how much time he will actually be given to do it.
