Er was constantly on the move and constantly set standards. He rowed his arms forwards and backwards, sending unmistakable signals for those moments when collective efforts in the direction of attack or defense were necessary. In between, the man in the gray wool shirt raised both arms to clap when his players had achieved something worth seeing.
In other words: Stefan Kuntz, the new coach of the Turkish national soccer team, was committed and positive at all times on Friday evening, as before in his successful years as coach of the German U21 team, when it came to supporting his players in every situation to support. The fact that his premiere in the Fenerbahce Istanbul stadium on Friday evening was only halfway successful had more to do with the fact that the 58-year-old Saarlander took over a difficult, albeit attractive legacy as the successor to his colleague Senol Günes.
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For the time being, it was enough in the Group G World Cup qualifier only to a 1: 1 for third place in the table against second Norway after the goals of Aktürkoglu (6th minute) and Thorstvedt (41st). Too little to brighten the prospects of reaching the World Cup finals in Qatar in 2022, but still enough to keep hoping for your own chance in the subsequent playoff duels with three games still to be played.
The notorious optimist and communicator Kuntz, who also achieved two European championship titles (2017, 2021) and a second place (2019) with the German U21 team due to his empathic, rousing nature, is now in the games in Latvia Monday (8.45 p.m.) as well as in November against Gibraltar and in Montenegro under pressure to win. The question that will also be asked by your new coach is whether his courageous and insecure team over long stretches in the Sükrü Saracoglu Stadium will make the qualitative leap to more self-confidence by then.
Suboptimal Einstandsertrag
The fact that in the first game after the previous humiliating 6-1 defeat at Group First Netherlands, despite the change of coach, something like a spirit of optimism was only visible in trace elements, for example when the stormy goal preparer Cengiz Ünder lived out his aggressiveness, was after the hailed summer with the winless preliminary round -And understandable from the European Championship finals and the blow in the neck in Amsterdam.
Kuntz also nibbled a little on the suboptimal initial yield. “We would have liked to give our Turkish fans a victory to let the plant of hope grow a little faster – it is still a little small now,” he said after his debut between new beginnings and old burdens. The Turkish lightning start with the early opening goal was not enough to spark an initial spark. For that, Kuntz’s professionals had too often lined up too hastily in front of the Scandinavian goal and defended their own goal too nervously and indecisively.
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A result of the still unstable balance that the German trainer and his assistant coaches Kenan Kocak and Jan-Moritz Lichte, who are hired in Germany, now have to straighten out in a hurry.
“There is still a lack of self-confidence in the team,” said Kuntz. Hamit Altintop, the long-time Bundesliga professional of FC Schalke 04 and FC Bayern Munich, convinced him to commit to a three-year commitment as sports director of the Turkish Football Association’s board of directors. Right away he had to deal with a missed opportunity against an unexcited Norwegian team without the elemental force of the injured Dortmund striker Erling Haaland.
Lots of pathos and fire
Turkey expert Kuntz, in the 1995/96 season with Besiktas Istanbul under contract, in addition to the mediocre game with the same. Some of the 23,917 fans immediately whistled for the initial income after the meeting with the new coach was over. And in the press conference afterwards, a local journalist persistently asked what part Kuntz attributed to this unsatisfactory 1: 1.
The 58-year-old man, who wants to become the “most German Turk and the most Turkish German”, did not allow himself to be deprived of his basic friendliness. In his place of work now, unlike in Germany, where he made a name for himself as a development worker for the young professional generation, he will have to reckon with the emotional stimulus climate between bright enthusiasm and rapidly flaring outrage at every turn. Big newspapers like Hürriyet (“We missed a great opportunity”) and Fanatic (“The German vaccine didn’t work”) reminded Kuntz straight away that he had to be prepared for moments of change in Istanbul.
Over the next three years he would like to savor the excitement of being able to be successful beyond home. As before the German colleagues Otto Rehhagel (2004 European champion with Greece), Jürgen Klinsmann (at the 2014 World Cup with the United States in the second round after a 0: 1 failure against eventual world champions Germany) or Ottmar Hitzfeld (with Switzerland in 2010 and 2014 at two World Cup finals). And so Kuntz promised the expectant and impatient fans of the Milli Takim: “We will find our own Turkish style.” For a lack of reliable facts, he did not say how long that could last.
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