The President had the last word in Qatar before many words will soon be lost at home.

On Friday morning, when everything was lost again early in a World Cup and the German Football Association (DFB) entourage flew home, the first man from the association spoke at the airport in Doha.

Appropriate for the occasion, Bernd Neuendorf wore a dark shirt.

For the second time after the German debacle four and a half years ago, the four-time world champion was eliminated in the preliminary round of a final round.

Tobias Rabe

Responsible editor for Sport Online.

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Neuendorf spoke for a good two minutes.

"Leaving the tournament hurts tremendously," said the president, who has been at the DFB leadership since March 11.

"We still have to look ahead and will therefore initiate an orderly process on how to deal with this situation."

Focus is on home EM 2024

The former SPD politician also explained the "procedure".

"The timetable stipulates that we will sit down together next week." He meant national coach Hansi Flick, Oliver Bierhoff, DFB director for national teams, Hans-Joachim Watzke, chairman of the supervisory board of the German Football League, and himself.

Neuendorf stated his expectation of an initial sporting analysis of the tournament by Flick and Bierhoff.

At the same time he called for "prospects for the time after the tournament with a view to the European Championship in your own country."

The continental finals in Germany, which include the contracts of Flick and Bierhoff, are scheduled for summer 2024.

It is unclear whether they are allowed to do so.

"We will have further talks," said Neuendorf - and went to the plane to Frankfurt.

The statement by Bernd Neuendorf in the wording:

“You can imagine that yesterday was a big disappointment for us, being eliminated from the tournament hurts tremendously.

We still have to look ahead and will therefore initiate an orderly process on how to deal with this situation.

This means that we have developed a roadmap.

This timetable provides that we will sit down together in the coming week.

Hansi Flick, Oliver Bierhoff, Aki Watzke and myself.

It will be a first meeting where we will discuss how the situation is going.

My expectation of the sporting management is that they carry out an initial analysis at this meeting, a sporting analysis of this tournament.

But that she also develops perspectives for the time after the tournament with a view to the European Championship in her own country.

This analysis must also include the development of the national team and our football since 2018, since the last World Cup.

(...) We will then hold further talks on this basis.

(...)

We anticipate that we will conduct these discussions with great respect for one another and in confidence.

In this respect, I ask for your understanding that we will not issue any water level reports, but will come back to you with the result when the analysis is complete."