With its hasty departure from Qatar, the German Football Association (DFB) even seemed to have forgotten where it came from.

As a reminder: The headquarters of the association, which wandered aimlessly through this World Cup, is in Frankfurt.

Since this year there has also been a status symbol of the DFB cast in concrete.

A wickedly expensive campus whose size and facilities give you an immediate impression: we can afford anything – and we can afford anything.

Michael Horini

Football correspondent Europe in Berlin.

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Nothing less than the future of German football, which has meanwhile become rather run-down, is to be created in this squat place with the attitude of a big man.

No question: the architecture and interior design are highly ambitious, but so far hardly anyone has noticed an inspiring, good German football spirit in this luxury property.

Numerous football experts in the country have long been concerned about whether he will ever move in and feel at home there.

Which takes you very quickly to the hosts, Oliver Bierhoff, who is probably the most important initiator of this project of the century for the DFB.

He initiated it many years ago and fought hard for it.

As DFB director, he is now responsible for this.

But even on the return trip from Qatar, the DFB headquarters and the posh campus no longer played a role for Bierhoff.

For the first time in its history after a tournament, the DFB entourage did not end up at their Frankfurt headquarters as usual on Friday evening – but in Munich, conveniently the home of many Bayern players in the German squad.

And from Bierhoff, who has established himself at Tegernsee.

This symbolism also had something: while the Bayern stars and Bierhoff were already lying on the sofa at home after the World Cup, DFB President Bernd Neuendorf and association employees were waiting at Munich Airport for their connecting flight to Frankfurt.

Another detail of the strange return journey of the failed from the realm of Bierhoff and national coach Hansi Flick should not be withheld: The national team did not make the flight from Doha together.

Some of the players said goodbye to Qatar directly on vacation.

The speech planned by DFB President Neuendorf to the entire team on the day after departure, which the "kicker" had reported, came to nothing.

The next meeting between Neuendorf and Bierhoff is scheduled for this week in Frankfurt.

Together with Flick, the DFB director is asked to present an initial analysis of the World Cup.

And to give an outlook towards the European Championships in Germany in a year and a half.

Neuendorf knows what's at stake, for him too.

His first term ends in 2025.

In any case, it is questionable whether the "very, very good feeling" that Bierhoff felt about his own future at the DFB in an ARD interview immediately after the failure in Qatar had anything to do with reality.

The business trip to Qatar could have been his last for the DFB.