DFB Women – National coach Christian Wück smiles away the adversities

Enough time has passed. Christian Wück had to wait exactly 227 days after his official announcement as the new national coach of the DFB women to be on the training pitch with the German footballers for the first time. As soon as his players arrived at the hotel at the Frankfurt Trade Fair, they went just a few kilometers further on Monday to the Rödelheim district to hold a public session in the stadium at Brentanobad. The man is neither afraid of contact nor self-doubt: the 51-year-old will take up his job with a smile on his face before his debut in the international match against England at Wembley next Friday.

Incidentally, he immersed himself in the subject matter earlier than many people think. The football teacher, who has been working for the DFB’s youth ranks since 2011, was already involved as a scout at the 2019 World Cup. “It was football at a very high level,” said Wück in the specialist magazine “Kicker”. In France he analyzed the teams apart from the German team, which carelessly gambled away the final round in Lyon under Martina Voss-Tecklenburg. Because the preliminary round at the 2023 World Cup turned into a rift, a new beginning on the coaching bench was necessary.

Many people did not expect that the new DFB sports director Nia Künzer would choose a man, but Wück today speaks of a “happy coincidence”: the father, who grew up in Gänheim in Lower Franconia and lives in Bielefeld, wanted to come along after winning the World Cup and European Championships do something new for the male U17 youth. And according to Künzer, the association was looking for a trainer with “passion, expertise and a very clear concept.” The world champion hopes that Wück will “make the players better individually.”

Interim solution Horst Hrubesch only superficially handed over an ordered field. Olympic bronze was certainly worth a lot, but it was due to a pragmatic approach to paper over the playing deficits that were noticeable at association and club level. Eintracht Frankfurt, recently the most important supplier for the DFB team with eight players, demonstrated again in last weekend’s 0-1 defeat against Werder Bremen what was wrong: the final third was often played too slowly and too imprecisely.

Wück is based on the active style of play that sports director Hansi Flick once designed for all DFB teams. His approach with the women shouldn’t fundamentally differ from that with the juniors: “The content of how I will play football remains the same.” In the basic order, he favors a 4-2-3-1 system, with that National coach Silvia Neid celebrated the greatest successes.

The biggest construction site at the moment is internal defense. Wück: “You can see that we have some catching up to do.” After the resignation of Marina Hegering, the absence of Kathrin Hendrich and the injury to Bibiane Schulze Solano, there are indications that Janina Minge or Sjoeke Nüsken will probably move back from the midfield, Debutant Lisanne Gräwe is scheduled to be the sixth player. The upheaval for the 2025 European Championship in Switzerland would have been even greater, “but the quantity of players and talent is not as high as among the juniors,” the national coach noted with some concern. In order to address the problems with the transition from the youth sector, a U23 team has now been founded and will start playing against France on Thursday on the DFB campus.

Former attacker Wück expects a lot from 25-year-old Giovanna Hoffmann from RB Leipzig, who allegedly “fulfills the position profile of a center forward 100 percent” and is likely to make her debut on the hallowed turf in London. Three days later, icon Alexandra Popp leads the DFB women onto the field for the last time in their farewell game against Australia in Duisburg. Wück then has further opportunities to make his signature clear on November 29th against Switzerland and three days later against Italy.

It makes sense that the new national coach is based on Hrubesch when it comes to people management. “What I will take away from Horst is how he deals with the players,” said Wück. He was also extremely popular in the team behind the team. The national coach was only in contact with his predecessor, who was once again working as a junior manager at HSV, by telephone – there was no meeting (yet). There wasn’t that much time after all.