After the German team was knocked out in the quarter-finals of the European Championship, former national coach Berti Vogts is calling for a critical review of the DFB. “We must not be too naive about the situation,” he wrote in a column in the “Rheinische Post”. German football is not world class enough and can no longer keep up with other top international teams. The DFB must now ask itself what is going wrong.
Vogts complains that the training in the academies and among the coaches is too focused on theory. “We urgently need real practitioners, players who have been active at international level and have experienced what football is like,” wrote the 1974 world champion.
Vogts, who also won the European Championship as a coach in 1996, is calling for former national players to be more closely involved in the association’s work: “Where is Lothar Matthäus? Where is Michael Ballack? Where is Bastian Schweinsteiger? Where are all the others?” With their expertise, they would make great coaches, said the 77-year-old. Vogts also believes that overseas internships should be made compulsory in coach training. “I myself spent six weeks with Alex Ferguson at Manchester United – I learned an incredible amount there,” he recalled. It is not harmful to learn from the best. “And in international football, that is no longer us, but the others.”
Price explosion for final tickets – “We’re talking about a five-figure sum”
On Sunday, Spain and England will fight for the European Championship title in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium. Tickets are still available online, but the prices are steep: “Starting at 1,300 euros, there’s no upper limit,” says reporter Steffen Schwarzkopf.
16:07: Prince William arrives
Prince William, who is also chairman of the Football Association (FA), has attended two European Championship matches so far – he will also travel to Berlin for the final against Spain. Before that, he watched the group match against Denmark and the round of 16 against Switzerland from the stands.
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The British King Charles III congratulated the team on reaching the final, but also made a request. “If I could encourage you to secure victory before any last-minute wonder goals or another penalty drama are necessary,” the king said, according to a statement from the palace. Then “the strain on the nation’s collective pulse and blood pressure would be greatly eased,” it continued.
14:50: “The maximum was extracted from the rail system here”
Deutsche Bahn has drawn mixed conclusions about its performance during the European Football Championship, particularly with regard to punctuality. “The rail system made the most of its performance, but the possibilities were limited by outdated and overloaded infrastructure,” the railway said. In addition, train traffic, particularly on the north-south route, was affected by flood damage for several weeks. “Several hundred ICE trains per day had to be diverted, which increased travel times by 30 to 60 minutes,” it said.
The railway was criticized several times for its performance during the tournament. Just this week, the Dutch team had to travel to the semi-finals by plane instead of by train due to a last-minute train cancellation. At the start of the tournament, hundreds of Austrian fans were stranded in Bavaria because a construction site was not finished on time as planned. Tournament director Philipp Lahm missed the kick-off of a match in the group phase due to problems with the railway.
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The railway company has repeatedly admitted to problems and apologized to passengers. “We were indeed not up to par, our transport during the European Championships did not run smoothly,” said railway spokeswoman Anja Bröker in a television interview a week ago.
The fans had to endure high temperatures in some cases in completely overcrowded and delayed trains
Source: dpa/Andreas Arnold
DB’s own record on security is positive. According to the state-owned company, there were “no significant incidents on the trains or at the stations”. 5,400 DB security guards were on duty at the stations and on the trains. Twelve million travelers traveled on DB’s ICE and IC trains during the European Championships. The European Championship trophy also traveled by train and was transported to the final venue in Berlin.
1:30 p.m.: ARD satisfied: Streaming record for the European Championship
Even before the European Championship final, ARD is looking back on a tournament with record viewer numbers. The live streams of the 17 European Championship games were viewed more than 50 million times in total. “More than ever before for a tournament,” the public broadcasting association announced. ARD also recorded record figures for the television broadcasts.
The two most-watched games were the quarter-finals of the German national team against Spain and the DFB team’s preliminary round match against Switzerland. More than 26 million viewers tuned in to both games.
12:57 pm: Chancellor Scholz attends the final
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) will also be attending the final of the European Football Championship between Spain and England at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium on Sunday. This was announced by deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Büchner in Berlin. Scholz had already attended the German team’s games against Denmark and Spain.
The Chancellor’s conclusion about the tournament is entirely positive. “The European Championships have shown that sport can bring people together,” explained Büchner. “We are grateful to the fans from all over Europe for celebrating on our streets, singing, dancing to the sounds of the saxophone, jumping left and right or walking from Scotland to us.”
10:06 am: Seriously ill Eriksson to Southgate: “Do it for me”
The terminally ill football coach Sven-Göran Eriksson has addressed emotional words to England’s head coach Gareth Southgate before the European Championship final. A letter published in the “Telegraph” entitled “Dear Gareth, do it for me, Bobby Robson and England” is intended to further encourage the Three Lions before the final on Sunday (9 p.m./ARD and MagentaTV) in Berlin against Spain.
“Being England manager brings with it enormous pressure. You hear so much about 1966 and Sir Alf Ramsey’s team. You know how much the expectations are on you to end all those years of pain. I felt it. Sir Bobby Robson felt it. Any of the 13 managers since Sir Alf will have felt it,” wrote Eriksson, who has terminal pancreatic cancer and made the diagnosis public earlier this year. “None of us made it, but no one was closer than Gareth Southgate.”
08:00 am: Habeck on whistles against Cucurella: Emotions are part of it
According to Economics Minister Robert Habeck, the loud boos from German fans against Spain’s Marc Cucurella do not cast a shadow on the European Championship hosts. “Emotions are part of it and sometimes they go too far. I can remember situations in which players were still being booed a year later. But that should not tarnish the picture,” said the Green politician in an interview with the “Neue Westfälische”.
During the European Championship semi-final between Spain and France, a number of spectators in Munich repeatedly booed defender Cucurella. The reason was that Cucurella’s handball in extra time during the quarter-final victory against the German team was not punished with a penalty. There were long discussions about the controversial scene afterwards.
Habeck praised the European Football Championship in Germany as a “great tournament, well organized, also in terms of security.” The Federal Minister also thanked the police for their efforts and stated: “Germany really showed its best side.”
07:00 am: Gastronomy at Berlin Fan Mile draws mixed conclusions
The restaurateurs at the Berlin fan zones at the Brandenburg Gate and at the Reichstag have mixed feelings about business during the European Football Championship. The majority of operators are satisfied overall, said Arnold Bergmann, owner of Bergmann Eventgastronomie. Nevertheless, the days without games at the fan mile at the Brandenburg Gate have taken their toll on them, with significantly fewer visitors coming on these days. “That was weak to bad for the restaurateurs,” said Bergmann.
His company coordinated the retailers’ applications for the fan zones. Around 30 to 35 stands offer food and drinks at both locations, including vegetarian and vegan options. While all of the European Championship games have been shown at the Reichstag so far, selected games have been shown on the large screens at the Brandenburg Gate – including the Germany games and the games at the Berlin Olympic Stadium.
17:30: Dutchman de Ligt will probably leave FC Bayern
A transfer of Dutch defender Matthijs de Ligt (24) from FC Bayern Munich to Manchester United is apparently becoming more and more concrete. The German and English record champions are said to be in advanced talks about a transfer. This is reported by the TV broadcaster Sky and the Italian transfer expert Fabrizio Romano.
De Ligt is said to only want to leave Bayern for Manchester United this summer. The European Championship participant is said to have a contract until the summer of 2029. The sticking point is still the transfer fee, which is said to be around 50 million euros.
Will the transfer happen after the European Championship exit? Matthijs de Ligt during the semi-final match against England
Source: dpa/Tom Weller
De Ligt is considered the most lucrative candidate for sale from Munich’s central defense. He moved from Juventus Turin to Bayern two years ago for a transfer fee of around 70 million euros. The Dutch international, whose team was knocked out by England in the European Championship semi-finals, has not yet established himself as an undisputed regular player at the German club. In Manchester, de Ligt would meet his former coach at Ajax Amsterdam, Erik ten Hag.
17:10: 17 injured after riots
A total of 17 people were slightly injured in clashes between fans during the semi-final between the Netherlands and England. This includes seven police officers, as the Dortmund police reported the day after the match. 23 Dutch and three English fans were taken into custody. They are now free again.
In total, the emergency services intervened in 22 cases of bodily harm, among others. There was also an attack on law enforcement officers and four acts of resistance against the police.
15:20: Federal Minister of the Interior draws positive interim conclusion
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has drawn a positive interim assessment of the European Championship. “So far, we have experienced a largely peaceful tournament,” she said. For a sports tournament of this size, there have only been “few security-related incidents” – and “significantly fewer than we had previously expected.” The high presence of federal and state police paid off, said Faeser.
The minister announced that she would once again pool all her strengths for the final on Sunday. Security remains the “top priority”. Faeser stressed: “We remain focused and vigilant.” She hopes that the “European Championship, which has been so great so far, will come to a peaceful conclusion in our country”.
The SPD politician had previously described the European Championships as the “biggest operation in the history of the Federal Police”. According to her, 22,000 Federal Police officers are deployed every day.
All games of the home European Championship at a glance:
Schedule of the European Championship 2024 with all results
European Championship schedule as PDF to print
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