More football, less politics: How Rudi Völler defies change at the DFB

More football, less politics
How Rudi Völler defies change at the DFB

6/10/2023 1:03 p.m

As the new sports director, Rudi Völler is more of an administrator than a doer. The former national coach is reminiscent of the good old days. He is anything but an innovator – his successors then have to take on this job. At the DFB, this is primarily aimed at a certain clientele.

The rudeness of just a few seconds on TV is enough to understand why the German Football Association (DFB) has chosen a well-known figure from its own ranks as sports director. When Rudi Völler entered the scene of the Sport1 show “Doppelpass” at Munich Airport on May 21, the band strummed a few notes – and everyone sang the song about the man who only exists once. A quick wink: Everything will be fine.

Rudi Völler manages the “Good mood and old times” department at the DFB until the 2024 home European Championship. President Bernd Neuendorf talks about politics, finances, social issues, he himself moderates the sporting topics (from). Antonio Rudiger is a good boy despite insulting an annoying fan, you can almost hear the centre-back patting the cheek. The DFB is not always to blame for everything, and the world champions Argentina? He is “not better than us either”. Just like it was in 1990. Only “we” were eliminated in Qatar in the preliminary round.

This goes down very well with a certain clientele that tends to be male and tends to be older than 45. In Völler they see the man with the curly hair, damp with sweat or Frank Rijkaard’s spit, the world champion, but also the team boss, who could get so excited. There is only one Rudi Völler.

Successor gets real task

The 63-year-old benefits from the fact that no decisive strategic-structural impulses are expected from him: his successors can take care of that, Sami Khedira and Hannes Wolf are currently being discussed. In his area of ​​responsibility, Völler spreads a pleasant feeling of familiarity, just the good, old, definitely simpler times.

When he talks about gender without a reason (not his thing), he derives it from his home town of Hanau. That’s where the Brothers Grimm came from. It’s not all that conclusive, like his taunts against climate activists – but politics has to be good sometimes: “Now it’s about football again.”

Rudi Völler ordered the national team to return to the black, red and gold captain’s armband. He hits the nerve of those who have already suggested that the team care more about football and less about social issues. Change? Hm. The topics can be set better based on success than on embarrassing failure.

Völler came to training with a coffee mug this Saturday and hugged Hansi Flick. Völler talks a lot with and to the players, he is a supporting hand and voice for Flick. He has served the national team as a player and team manager, now he does it as a sporting director. From the way Hans-Joachim Watzke reported on this personnel decision, it sounded as if Völler had not said no quickly enough.

On Friday he got sentimental. The 1000th international match against Ukraine will be played in Bremen, where Völler’s Bundesliga career began in 1982. When the bus drives down from the Osterdeich to the stadium, it’s like it used to be: “Everything is a bit nicer and more modern, otherwise not that much has changed.” It was a sentence that would have fit many things.