As a reminder: Hansi Flick had already been seen in a similar situation. Some will have forgotten, on the one hand because it was six summers ago, on the other hand because they have always seen themselves more in the role of a loyal helper than that of a loud performer. In 2014 he helped Joachim Löw to become world champion as national coach in Rio. In 2020, he will try to portray it, he helped his players win the Champions League. And at the same time this triple of national championship, cup victory and the ugly pot pot as the crowning glory. Such a triple is rare, so far in Germany only Jupp Heynckes was able to conduct FC Bayern in 2013. What both coaches have in common: humility in the service of the cause. No wonder that Flick refers to Heynckes.
Idle to judge now whether this cup victory in front of empty stands is a full cup victory; whether it corresponds in eternal value to a cup victory in front of full grandstands. First of all: this competition started almost a year ago in front of a live backdrop, then the virus came and so it had to be ended as a pure television game. The very fact that such a hybrid of competition has never been coached before documents the value of Flick’s coaching performance. From assistant to boss to champion – within just one year. Never before has anyone gone through such a career faster. And that at 55! In the end it was a close story. A single goal, the hit from Kingsley Coman, let Flick triumph over compatriot Thomas Tuchel.
Both coaching duels had been upgraded due to the stress factor of the statistics. It was only the third time that two compatriots coached a Champions League final against each other; In 2013 Heynckes prevailed with Bayern against Jürgen Klopp’s Dortmund. Klopp, on the other hand, passed the pot that he had won with Liverpool FC last year to Flick, who is the sixth German to have won the most important trophy in club football since 1955/56. Udo Lattek, Dettmar Cramer and Ottmar Hitzfeld are also part of this sextet. A coach guard that finds many talented successors in the present: Julian Nagelsmann failed in the semi-finals with RB Leipzig only to Tuchel and Paris; Klopp recently became the first German coach to win the Premier League.
The high of the German coaches – a snapshot at the end of a strange season? Or is it more? In any case, football cannot share the leadership skepticism that is rampant in the country. From junior Nagelsmann, 33, to grandmaster Flick, 55, there is something suitable from every generation.
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