And then they skipped through a field of daisies! Jogi stays until 2014

March 15th, 2011 | by: Anne | Comments Off

This morning, the DFB announced some excellent news: Jogi Löw and his coaching staff (Hansi Flick, Andreas Köpke, and manager Oliver Bierhoff) have extended their contracts early through July 31, 2014. This takes us under the metro man’s wing through the World Cup in Brazil.

The talk surrounding the announcement is all hunky-dory love-in type stuff. Apparently the negotiations only took a few days, and everyone’s talking about trust and exciting prospects and so on. DFB President Theo Zwanziger said, “The harmonious contract talks have once again made it clear how great the mutual trust is. These respectful, open dealings with each other are the best prerequisite for continuing the successful joint work of the past into the future.” The man himself said, “Hansi Flick, Andreas Koepke, Oliver Bierhoff and I have a lot of fun with this delightful task. We believe in the quality of our players and see good prospects for our team. Therefore we have gladly accepted the offer of the DFB leadership to renew early.”

This is in pretty sharp contrast to when talks broke down with Jogi before South Africa and things were up in the air. Obviously the performance of the team at WC2010 has gotten everyone on board with this “young, exciting” team and the project Jogi has started. Of course there was an element of fortune to that – many of the players that starred wouldn’t have even played if it weren’t for injuries – but Jogi still showed the vision to trust the young talents at the 11th hour and assemble them into a beautiful, effective unit. This harmony and security moving forward is excellent news for the mentality of our young players and their relationship with their coaching staff. Now, is Jogi perfect? No, of course not. There are many things we here disagree with him quite strongly on (cough center backs cough). But in a big picture sense, this extension gives Jogi and his team the full, unequivocal support of the DFB going into EURO 2012, and the license to work on a comprehensive development project with an eye to the long term goal of lifting the World Cup in Brazil.

And we’ve just ensured this team is gonna stay fashionable and snazzy for the foreseeable future. A massive relief. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go buy a blue sweater.

Don’t forget, we’ve got some matches coming up! There’s a EURO Qualifier on Saturday, March 26th against Kazakhstan, followed by a repeat of our WC opening game with a friendly against Australia on Tuesday, March 29th. Watch this space for updates as soon as they start cropping up!