Matthias Sammer Critiques Oliver Bierhoff's Leadership in Germany Setup
Matthias Sammer has fired a sharp broadside at Oliver Bierhoff in the ongoing debate over leadership and personality in the Germany setup, insisting the long-time DFB director carries a major share of the blame for what he himself is now criticising.
Bierhoff had told kicker that the current national team lacks experienced leaders and “outstanding personalities with great individual strengths”. For Sammer, that complaint rings hollow.
“It wasn't long ago that he was also saying we need flat hierarchies in Germany,” Sammer said on Sky, calling out the contradiction.
Sammer stressed he has always believed in a clear mix of “leaders, team players and individualists” in a dressing room. Treat them all the same, he argued, and you pay the price later.
“If you want to treat them all the same, in the dressing room, on the pitch, then we shouldn't be complaining today or saying we are missing a few characters,” he said.
Bierhoff, who ran the national team project from 2004 to 2022, cannot simply step aside from that responsibility, Sammer insisted. “As the man in charge from 2004 to 2022,” he said, Bierhoff has to be held accountable “to some extent”.
Sammer recalled his own early impressions after joining the DFB in 2006. “In 2007 I asked myself the question: something isn't right here. Just that, not right or wrong. And then people asked me, why? I say, we're all the same. They're all lovely and nice and that's great, but we're not at a pony farm here.”
Then he drove the point home.
“This is elite sport, things get rough at times. It has to kick off in training sometimes, it has to kick off in the dressing room sometimes.”
For the 59-year-old, the whole idea of flat hierarchies at the top level is not just misguided, it is ruinous. He called talk of flat structures in elite sport and in a team “one of the biggest mistakes” ever made.
“It's a catastrophe,” Sammer said.
The message was clear: Germany’s identity crisis, in his eyes, did not appear out of nowhere.
“Mega Guy” Klopp Lights Up First Germany Camp
While Sammer dissected the past, the present in Herzogenaurach crackled with something very different: Jürgen Klopp’s arrival and the rush of new faces desperate to impress him.
Within a few days, the new Bundestrainer has clearly won over the rookies.
“You feel like you'd walk through fire for him,” said Freiburg defender Philipp Treu in camp, calling Klopp “a mega guy”.
On his debut international window, Klopp has thrown the doors wide open. Alongside Treu, Bambase Conte, Yannik Engelhardt, Max Rosenfelder, Hennes Behrens and Younes Ebnoutalib are all in Herzogenaurach with partner adidas as Germany gear up for Thursday’s Nations League opener in the Netherlands (8.45pm).
Ebnoutalib summed up what Klopp demands above all: “That we represent the German national team with pride,” he said before Tuesday afternoon’s training session. “That we step up, that even when things aren't going well, we give everything.”
The Frankfurt attacker had another choice. He could have opted for Morocco. He didn’t hesitate when the phone rang.
“But: When Klopp calls, you have to go. He is one of the best coaches in the world, there is definitely positive energy.”
Rosenfelder, also from Freiburg, feels the same pull. Klopp brings “a lot of charisma”, the centre-back said. Respect is huge, but the coach’s manner breaks down the distance.
“In conversations he is very nice, very likeable and makes you feel involved,” Rosenfelder explained. In his first days with the DFB side, he just wants to “take in everything. I'm just really up for it.”
Treu, his club team-mate, is eyeing a very concrete opportunity: the open right-back spot. “I want to show who I am,” said the defender, who cites Philipp Lahm as his role model.
“You can always rely on me,” Treu promised. If he gets his chance, he wants to “leave my heart on the pitch and always give it everything”.
The new era has barely begun, but the tone in camp has already changed. Players are not just happy to be there; they sound ready to run themselves into the ground for their new coach.
Klopp’s Plan and the Limits of Euphoria
Sammer, for all his criticism of the past, sees something he likes in the man now tasked with repairing it.
“I recognise that he has an absolute plan,” he said on Sammer & Basile – der Hagedorn-Talk on Sky. “You can always discuss his way of organising things, but it follows a plan.”
His biggest hope? That Klopp’s Germany “gives us back an identity that we urgently need”.
After the World Cup debacle, Klopp stepped in for Julian Nagelsmann. On Tuesday he led his first full team training session in Herzogenaurach. On Thursday night in Amsterdam, he will walk out for his first match as Germany head coach, against the Netherlands.
Expectation is soaring. Sammer tried to pull it back to earth.
“He can't work miracles,” he warned. For him, Klopp’s job is to make the process understandable, to use his personality and vast coaching experience to show that rebuilding “may also need a bit of time”.
Right now, the mood around the national team is buoyant. “He seems euphoric – already – and that affects the people and the team too,” Sammer said.
But he added one last reminder, a line that will hang over this new chapter as the real tests begin:
“At some point, euphoria alone won't get you anywhere.”
