Need to speak: national coach Hansi Flick (left) in conversation with Niklas Süle. Image: Picture Alliance
Defender Niklas Süle, whom Hansi Flick publicly criticized this summer, is back in the national team – and with him comes an unanswered question: What is the national coach up to?
On Tuesday afternoon, the sports reporters in Munich photographed a soccer player who certainly did not want to be in Munich this week. They documented how Leon Goretzka, who surprisingly wasn’t allowed to be in Wolfsburg with the German Football Association (DFB) this week in September, had to practice on Säbener Strasse with players who mostly belong to FC Bayern’s second team. And so it was quite fitting that the DFB in Wolfsburg sent a player to the press conference before the game against Japan this Saturday (8.45 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the national soccer team and on RTL), who of course could not speak for Goretzka, but he could guess how he’s feeling right now.
“Sometimes other people decide in football – and you always have to accept the decision: There’s no room to sulk or anything else.” Says Niklas Süle, the defender from Dortmund, who also had to stay in Dortmund earlier this summer. because Hansi Flick, the national coach, didn’t want him in the national team. And yet you have to notice a decisive difference: This September, Flick gathers the players around him who are supposed to be the backbone of the team for the European Championship – with Süle, without Goretzka.
