Soccer Martina Voss-Tecklenburg
“I’m just crying”
As of: 2:53 p.m. | Reading time: 3 minutes
DFB terminates contract with Voss-Tecklenburg
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg is no longer the coach of the German women’s national soccer team. After the World Cup exit in the preliminary round, the DFB has now drawn the consequences and terminated the contract with Voss-Tecklenburg.
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The sick report and her inglorious end as national coach kept the DFB and the German women’s team busy for a long time. Now Martina Voss-Tecklenburg speaks in detail about this time for the first time.
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg had been in hiding for months, and now the former national coach of the German footballers is speaking emotionally and self-critically for the first time about her illness – and her mistakes. A feeling of pressure on the chest, panic attacks and insomnia were the result of the World Cup debacle and its processing, said the 55-year-old in a ZDF interview: “I basically collapsed completely.”
The fears, insecurity and emptiness in her head became increasingly stronger – almost as if the plug had been pulled on me. The German Football Association announced at the beginning of September that Voss-Tecklenburg was ill. After a long standoff, the DFB appointed Horst Hrubesch as interim coach for the German women, who had failed in the preliminary round of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand – a year after the strong performance at the European Championship in England and narrowly missing out on the title.
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg was on sick leave for a long time after the World Cup ended
Quelle: AP/Tertius Pickard
The DFB terminated the contract with Voss-Tecklenburg, which runs until 2025, at the beginning of the month. During the former national player’s term of office, “important impulses were given in the area of women’s football,” explained association boss Bernd Neuendorf in a short statement.
“I wasn’t feeling well before the World Cup”
In addition to the tournament favorite’s World Cup debacle, Voss-Tecklenburg also recently attracted criticism because she gave two lectures even though she had not yet been reported as healthy again by the DFB at the time. “Then I did the public appearances. In retrospect you can say: How stupid – mistake,” said Voss-Tecklenburg.
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She took vacation and the rest of the year’s vacation “in order to get completely healthy, to simply use these weeks again, to come back, to be able to take part in life again.” A joint press release was not made at the time for various reasons.
“We have the best coach” – Dallmann’s meaningful praise for Hrubesch
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg’s time out after the World Cup exit caused quite a stir. Now the national coach is “almost fit for action again”, but the national players seem to have already found the perfect coach in Horst Hrubesch.
“I was sick and I didn’t know how long this process would take. I realized that now I just have to be there for myself,” said Voss-Tecklenburg in the interview about the time before. She noticed: “The head is empty. I’m just crying. I’m not able to think constructively.” Her doctor’s advice was clear: to withdraw first in order to minimize the risk of depressive episodes.
“I was not feeling well. I wasn’t feeling well before the World Cup,” said Voss-Tecklenburg. The vice-European champions had already weakened in the test matches before Australia. After the World Cup ended, she tried to lift the players up again and give them courage. “Everyone somehow tried to function to a certain extent, to do justice to their task.” But the mood was of course extremely depressing, said Voss-Tecklenburg.
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That hasn’t changed at home either. After several meetings with the coaching staff, she was nagging at the thought of whether she was still the right person for the position – “as a coach, as a person, as a human being.” There had been criticism of Voss-Tecklenburg internally and also publicly. None of the players around captain Alexandra Popp have publicly advocated for the former national coach to return.
The look back at the botched World Cup will also accompany the national players and their fans around the all-important international match on December 1st in Rostock against Denmark, where the Olympic qualification for Paris 2024 is at stake.
