Sammer vs. Bierhoff: The Hierarchy Reckoning in German Football
Matthias Sammer doesn’t do nostalgia. Not when it comes to the state of German football, and certainly not when Oliver Bierhoff starts talking about missing personalities.
So when the former DFB director lamented in kicker that the national team currently lacks experienced leaders and “outstanding personalities with great individual strengths”, Sammer hit back – hard.
On Sky, the 1996 European champion reminded everyone where those structures came from.
“It wasn't long ago that he was also saying we need flat hierarchies in Germany,” Sammer said, cutting straight to the heart of the contradiction.
Sammer vs. Bierhoff: The hierarchy reckoning
Sammer has never hidden his belief in strong characters. Leaders. Mavericks. Players who rub each other up the wrong way if it means the level rises.
He repeated that creed again. A successful team, he argued, needs “leaders, team players and individualists”. The problem starts when you try to iron them all flat.
“If you want to treat them all the same, in the dressing room, on the pitch, then we shouldn't be complaining today or saying we are missing a few characters,” he said.
For Sammer, Bierhoff – who steered the national team setup from 2004 to 2022 – cannot simply step aside from responsibility for the culture that emerged in those years. “As the man in charge from 2004 to 2022,” Sammer insisted, Bierhoff must be held accountable “to some extent”.
He recalled his own early days at the DFB. “I came into the association in 2006 and in 2007 I asked myself the question: something isn't right here. Just that, not right or wrong.” When he voiced that doubt, people wanted to know why. His answer was blunt: “I say, we're all the same. They're all lovely and nice and that's great, but we're not at a pony farm here. This is elite sport, things get rough at times. It has to kick off in training sometimes, it has to kick off in the dressing room sometimes.”
Then came the line that will sting in any modern performance department.
The 59-year-old called the idea of flat hierarchies in elite team sport “one of the biggest mistakes” ever made. “It's a catastrophe.”
In other words: if Germany are now searching for big personalities, Sammer believes they first spent years systematically smoothing them out.
Klopp’s first days: “You’d walk through fire for him”
While the old guard argue over structures and blame, the new era has already walked through the door in Herzogenaurach wearing a baseball cap and a grin.
Jürgen Klopp has barely taken a training session as national coach, yet the newcomers in the DFB camp are already talking as if they’ve known him for years.
“You feel like you'd walk through fire for him,” said Freiburg’s Philipp Treu, visibly impressed by the man now running the show. For Treu, Klopp “is a mega guy” – a simple phrase, but it tells you everything about the emotional pull the coach still has.
On his debut, that “mega guy” is throwing the doors wide open. Alongside Treu, Bambase Conte, Yannik Engelhardt, Max Rosenfelder, Hennes Behrens and Younes Ebnoutalib are all in camp with partner adidas as Germany prepare for their Nations League opener in the Netherlands on Thursday night (8.45pm).
The message from Klopp to his new faces is clear, as Ebnoutalib explained before training on Tuesday afternoon. Above all, he expects “that we represent the German national team with pride, that we step up, that even when things aren't going well, we give everything.”
For Ebnoutalib, the decision could have gone another way. The Frankfurt player was also eligible for Morocco. But then the phone rang.
“When Klopp calls, you have to go,” he said. One of the best coaches in the world, “there is definitely positive energy.”
Rosenfelder, also of Freiburg, feels that same current. Klopp brings “a lot of charisma”, said the centre-back. You sense the respect, but also the ease. “Of course you have huge respect, but in conversations he is very nice, very likeable and makes you feel involved.” For now, Rosenfelder’s plan is simple: “take in everything. I'm just really up for it.”
Treu, his club team-mate, has already spotted an opportunity: the open right-back position. “I want to show who I am,” he said, naming Philipp Lahm as his role model. His self-description is short and to the point: “You can always rely on me.” If the chance comes, he wants to “leave my heart on the pitch and always give it everything.”
New names, same badge. And a coach who still knows exactly how to make players feel 10 feet tall.
“He has an absolute plan”: Sammer on Klopp’s mission
For all his criticism of the past, Sammer sounds almost invigorated when the subject turns to Klopp.
“I recognise that he has an absolute plan,” he said on ‘Sammer & Basile – der Hagedorn-Talk’ on Sky. “You can always discuss his way of organising things, but it follows a plan.” What Sammer is hoping for is nothing less than a reset of Germany’s footballing self-image. His “great hope” is “that this team gives us back an identity that we urgently need”.
The context could hardly be harsher. Klopp steps in after a World Cup debacle, replacing Julian Nagelsmann and inheriting a team that has drifted far from its old certainties.
On Tuesday, he led his first full training session in Herzogenaurach. On Thursday, he walks into Amsterdam and a meeting with the Netherlands for his debut as Germany head coach.
The hype is enormous. Sammer, though, offered a note of restraint.
“He can't work miracles,” he warned. The job, as he sees it, lies in making the process understandable – “through his personality and his experience as a coach” – and accepting that “this may also need a bit of time.”
Klopp, said Sammer, “seems euphoric – already – and that affects the people and the team too.” The danger is obvious. “But at some point, euphoria alone won't get you anywhere.”
Somewhere between Sammer’s demand for hard edges and Klopp’s surge of positive energy lies the future shape of this national team. The question now is simple, and unforgiving: can Germany turn charisma, conflict and renewed hierarchy into a team that actually wins again?
