Mats Hummels and Kai Havertz have only just understood where to run.

Vertical combination game, let the ball bounce off into the depths.

It is the first exercise in the national team's training last Thursday, warm-up program.

The national coach is already approaching from the center circle.

“Clean passes, yes!” Exclaims Joachim Löw, “Sharpness!” This time it shouldn't fail because of little things.

And certainly not negligence.

When you read the reports about Löw these days, when you hear others talk about him, the picture is always the same: So focused and at the same time free, it is said, you haven't seen the national coach for a long time.

Christian Kamp

Sports editor.

  • Follow I follow

    Already from the training sessions in Seefeld it was reported how present Löw was on the pitch, that he intervened much more than in previous years. In his free time he could be seen relaxing in the mountains on a mountain bike. And when he spoke for the public, in the press conferences, Löw showed himself from a tighter side, informative, but not rambling or playful. The form-follows-function-Löw, who once again has a big sporting goal in mind and sharpens the senses in every third sentence. Where did the espresso go?

    Löw has now been in office for almost 15 years, and for 15 years it has been part of looking for traces in the appearance of the national coach, in gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice, in the color of his sweaters or in the way he drinks his espresso.

    From his state of mind before a tournament to deduce the expected state of the team on the field.

    The continuation of kremlinology on a different playing field.

    This exegesis did not lead very far.

    Because the cosmos of a soccer team is more complex than it could be reduced to the question of what the coach is like this year.

    And because Löw has always understood how to play a role, especially in his later years.

    The biggest challenge

    The national team has been in their EM quarters in Herzogenaurach for a few days, a modern block house settlement for the creative elite on the company premises of the supplier Adidas, three or four players share one of the wooden bungalows, just a touch of Campo Bahia in Franconia without the sea.

    On Tuesday (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Football Championship, on ZDF and on MagentaTV), the tournament for Löw and his team begins with a challenge that couldn't be bigger: the duel with world champions France in Munich. After the impressions so far, it still takes a little imagination to imagine how the team, which has been rebuilt in a hurry over the past few weeks, will immediately develop the necessary structure and form of competition. Mbappé and colleagues, it is to be feared from a German point of view, are only marginally interested in the tightening of Monsieur Löw.

    Part of the hope in the football country rests precisely on it: that Löw, the tournament coach, will fix it. That’s something we’re talking about again and again these days. It's Löw's favorite role. Tournaments, says the national coach, are "the icing on the cake" for him. There is nothing better than being in the here and now for six weeks, working with the team, forgetting the world around you - and playing games on the knife edge. Löw's metaphor for this is the “tunnel”. However, he recently revealed in an interview that at the end of the interview there is not necessarily light to be found.