Football Negative Attitude
Adidas boss about Germans – “You also like not to love each other”
Status: 30.11.2023 | Reading time: 2 minutes
“We need another 2006 with a good atmosphere,” demands Adidas boss Bjørn Gulden
What: REUTERS
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Bjørn Gulden is the boss of Adidas and a former professional footballer. The Norwegian finds the Germans’ attitude towards their national team too negative. He can understand that the players are not “finally hungry” in some places.
Bjørn Gulden sees the attitude of Germans, especially when it comes to football, as too negative. “You are overly critical. It’s almost like this: You become world champion – and then the first thing it says: ‘Played badly, but became world champion.’ “That’s a bit typically German,” said the Norwegian, who once played as a professional for 1. FC Nürnberg in the 2nd Bundesliga, in the podcast “Spielmacher – Der EM Talk”. With regard to Sky expert and former national player Dietmar Hamann, who is now largely responsible for sparking the controversies in German football with his expertise, he added: “The German team is being criticized very harshly. You are 85 million experts and you all have the last name Hamann.”
He feels that the relationship between the Germans and their national team is such that “nobody loves anyone else. “You Germans sometimes like that, not loving each other,” said Gulden, who was also a member of the supervisory board of Borussia Dortmund from 2014 to 2022. This attitude also affects the team. “But in the end you will love each other. I’m 100 percent sure that if you see the German players, they have the quality for at least the semi-finals. Six players from your team could play for any team in the world.”
Nevertheless, the negativity is a problem: “Then it is also clear that when you play, you have the feeling that everyone is against you. And when it comes down to nothing, it’s clear that as a player you’re not completely hungry.” You also have to “exude a bit of joy and positivity” in the DFB. I felt like that was a little missing.” In his home country there is more of a quality problem: “We have the best striker in the world in Erling Haaland and one of the best midfielders in Martin Ødegaard – and we didn’t qualify for the European Championships.”
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Gulden believes that the European Championships in the summer could bring about a change in mood in Germany. This could come “at the right time”. “We need another 2006 like that with a good atmosphere, fan miles, party, joy. I really hope that it happens that way because I think everyone needs it, especially the young generation who recently lost two, three, four years due to Corona. They need fire again.”
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