Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at 3:18 PM• Mart Oude Nijeweeme • Last update: 15:20

Now that Joachim Löw has announced that he will retire as Germany’s national coach after the European Championship, speculation about his successor can begin. According to BILD Jürgen Klopp and Hansi Flick are high on the wish list of the German Football Association to take over the baton from the stopping Löw next summer. Klopp is going through an extremely disappointing season at Liverpool, which suffered their sixth consecutive home loss in the Premier League last weekend. Flick leads the Bundesliga with Bayern and is still fighting on all fronts.

For Löw, the upcoming European Championship is his last job as national coach. The coach has a continuous contract with the German team until mid-2022, but will stop on his own initiative a year earlier with his role as national coach of the four-time world champion. And so it is possible to look for a possible successor. Klopp is seen as a top candidate. The Liverpool manager has been making an impression in recent years as the manager at Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool. With the latter club, he won the league title for the first time in thirty years last year. He also managed to conquer the Champions League in the 2018/19 season.

This season, Klopp has a harder time. Liverpool are eighth in the Premier League and have lost six of the last seven games in competition. On Wednesday evening, Liverpool will defend a 0-2 lead against RB Leipzig for a place in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. At the press conference in the run-up to that game, Klopp announced that he was not interested in a position as national coach. “No, I will not be available in the summer or after the summer as a potential coach of the German national team. I have three more years to go with Liverpool. It’s very simple: you sign a contract and you try to stick to it. . “

In addition to Klopp, Flick’s name is also emphatically mentioned by the German media. Flick took over from the sacked Niko Kovac at Bayern Munich last season and won with der Rekordmeister everything there was to be gained. Flick’s contract will run until the summer of 2023. Finally, the name of Julian Nagelsmann is mentioned. The only 33-year-old Nagelsmann is seen as a progressive trainer, who has done an excellent job at TSG Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig in recent years. In his first full season, he guided Hoffenheim to fourth place in the Bundesliga, placing the club for the Champions League for the first time in history.

Leipzig currently occupies second place in the Bundesliga behind league-leader Bayern Munich. Nagelsmann follows the wish list behind Klopp and Flick. “It is sad news, but he is still on duty”, Nagelsmann responded to the news about Löw’s departure. “That’s the most important thing. He has had a big impact in German football. An era of titles. I hope it comes to a glorious end and I wonder what he will do in the future.”