Herbert Hainer stresses importance of Germany avoiding negativity

The wounds of Germany’s World Cup failure in Qatar are still fresh. There’s plenty of work for Hansi Flick to do prior to Euro 2024 kicking off on home soil, but the DFB has shown their continued faith in the man that won the treble with Bayern Munich in the 2019/20 season by sticking with him as Germany manager for the foreseeable future. Unless something completely drastic happens, he will be the man to lead Die Mannschaft into Euro 2024.

From a German perspective, there’s a lot to ponder in terms of just what, exactly, went wrong for the national team in Qatar, but on the main, it simply wasn’t good enough and they suffered the same fate they did in Russia four years ago. For the German national team, not making it out of the group stage isn’t good enough; plain and simple. There’s really no excusing or arguing that.

For all that went wrong with Germany, though, Bayern president Herbert Hainer does want the mood around the national team to remain so stale in negative in the buildup to Euro 2024. A lot can happen with both Bayern and Germany between now and then, and the two are quite synonymous with one another given how often there’s a heavy Bayern contingent in the national team selections.

“The home European Championship is not even two years away. German football has to pool all its strengths. One should not fall into negativism. It needs a now more than ever mentality,” Hainer said on the IV Christmas Eve, as per Abendzeitung’s Maximilian Koch. Of course, Bayern’s success and performances can have a large impact on that, but it’s still a collective sense of pride in Germany when it comes to the national team, and there will absolutely need to be an a great sense of said pride in the summer of 2024 to help push the team as far as they could, and should, go. That tournament is destined for them to win on home soil, but it’s far easier said than done.

Even still, remaining entirely negative won’t do anything but make matters worse for Germany, whether the finger is pointed at Flick, the defense, the lack of a natural, outright striker, or the wastefulness of chances in front of goal. The foundations and the talent is there, and there is no reason Germany can’t go the distance in 2024, but Hainer is right, the constant pity party really isn’t going to do any good, Address the problems, solve them, be prideful, and move on. It’s easy for that to sounds like a sort of “rinse and repeat” cycle, but it’s what has to be done.