BVB boss Watzke believes the German national team will have a good tournament. DFB sports director Rudi Völler is also optimistic about Euro 2024.
Hans-Joachim Watzke is confident that the German national team will have a successful European Championship in their own country. “I’m absolutely delighted and have an extremely good feeling,” said the Borussia Dortmund CEO at the 125th anniversary celebrations of the West German Football Association. The reason? “I know that we have the right people in the key positions, namely as coach and sports director,” explained Watzke, who as First Vice President of the German Football Association played a key role in the DFB filling these positions – namely with Rudi Völler as sports director and Julian Nagelsmann as national coach.
And Völler passes on the compliment to national coach Nagelsmann, who, with a good selection of personnel and two successful international matches in March against France (2:0) and the Netherlands (2:1), managed to rekindle optimism in the German soccer community, just over a month before the German national team’s opening match against Scotland on June 14. “The France game was by far the best we’ve shown in recent years,” said Völler, putting this down to the measures Nagelsmann took after losing international matches against Austria (0:2) and Turkey (2:3). “When things go pear-shaped, you recognize the good coaches,” said the DFB sports director. “Julian drew the right conclusions, changed the squad a bit, made a few bold decisions and has been rewarded.”
Völler and Watzke set no concrete goals for Euro 2024
However, Völler does not want to set a specific target for the European Championship. “The important thing is that we play a wonderful game in the opening match against the Scots and get on a wave of euphoria,” he said. Watzke is also reluctant to make a concrete prediction, but still has clear expectations of the team’s performance: “I hope that we manage to exude a certain playful ease,” he said. “And yet people should have the feeling: They can kick, but they also want to achieve everything.” The team didn’t become world champions in the ever-elusive 2006 summer fairytale either. “But people saw that: They play great, we can identify with that. “