Matthias Sammer: German football has lost strengths and identity

Matthias Sammer sharply criticizes German football, pointing to a lack of strength and identity.

Former Germany international Matthias Sammer has delivered a sharp critique of the current state of German football.

Sammer, now an advisor to Borussia Dortmund’s management, believes the German national team no longer plays like the “machine” it once was.

“We Germans have always played as a united, robust, and compact team, as our football history shows,” Sammer told Kicker.

“We had individual players who were geniuses; but as a team, we were a machine. Today, at best, we are a little machine.”

According to Sammer, German football has lost its identity and strength in a failed attempt to adapt to modern football.

“Our strengths were mistakenly dismissed as ‘rugged football,’ football of yesterday, or old-school,” he said.

“The balance between innovation and tradition to preserve our identity has failed. I deliberately ask myself provocatively when I look at German football today: What does German football actually stand for? I can’t see it.”

Sammer argued that Germany’s 1-2 extra-time quarter-final defeat to Spain at last year’s Euros deserved a more critical assessment.

“We are still better at sugarcoating than at critical analysis,” he claimed.

“There was a lack of courage to say, by our standards: Sorry, we were eliminated in the quarterfinals on home soil, no matter against whom.”

To steady the ship, Sammer said there is a “need to recalibrate our football and define priorities.”

“We no longer need flat hierarchies. Furthermore, the leaders in clubs and associations have the task of setting the direction,” he emphasized.