European Championship national team
Hrubesch pleads for “the real number nine” in the German team
Status: 10:06 am | Reading time: 2 minutes
Horst Hrubesch (centre) scores a header goal during the 1982 World Cup in Spain against Austria: The former striker scored six goals in 21 international matches
Quelle: picture-alliance/Werek
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Horst Hrubesch was a top striker for years. He doesn’t believe in false number nines – and praises Dortmund striker Niclas Füllkrug. The national women’s football coach believes the DFB team can win the title at the home European Championships.
It keeps coming up. On Friday, too, when the German national football team achieved a laborious 2:1 (0:1) victory against Greece, there was a debate afterwards about whether it would not be better to play with a real striker up front – rather than with a false number nine.
Horst Hrubesch, one of the best German centre forwards for years, is not surprised that the German national football team’s European Championship squad only includes a classic centre forward, Niclas Füllkrug. “At some point we wanted to play Tikitaka like the Spanish. With a false nine. Through the half spaces. That’s not my game,” the German women’s national football coach told the “Hamburger Abendblatt”.
Germany’s Kai Havertz (l) after his goal to make it 1:1 next to teammate Jamal Musiala
Source: dpa/Christian Charisius
The 73-year-old advocates for a striker in the lineup: “You always need the real number nine for the pressure phases, even when a long ball is played.”
“We have the quality to win the title,” says Hrubesch
In the last friendly match before the start of the European Championship against Greece (2:1), national coach Julian Nagelsmann had chosen Arsenal’s Kai Havertz as the centre of the attack. Although he scored the 1:1, he is considered more of a so-called false nine.
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When asked about the heading skills of Dortmund’s Füllkrug, Hrubesch said: “Niclas played for me in the German U19 team when he was still in Bremen. Even then he was strong in the air and above all he was confident in himself and his style. He has kept that up to today. He has matured and developed really well. Compliments.”
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Hrubesch, who scored two goals in the 1980 final against Belgium (2:1) to help the DFB team win the European Championship, believes the German team can pull off a major victory at the home tournament: “We have the quality to win the title,” he said. “But a lot of things have to come together. The last three years have not gone as we all imagined. In the end, the will to go one step further than the others will be the deciding factor.”
