Completely surprising statements! Hans-Joachim Watzke wanted Thomas Tuchel as Germany coach
These remarks are certainly surprising! Borussia Dortmund president Hans-Joachim Watzke has revealed that he would have liked to appoint Thomas Tuchel as Germany coach. However, not this summer, but four years ago after the 2022 World Cup.
On the Sky programme "Meine Geschichte", the DFB vice-president said yes when presenter Riccardo Basile asked whether he had considered installing Tuchel on the Germany bench.
"Yes, not in the summer. (…). But I had already had the idea," said Watzke, before stressing: "We went out in Qatar pretty miserably. And then? Then you do start thinking like that at night or for two nights, what could happen now?" Why did he not push for the current England national coach to succeed Hansi Flick? Although the now 67-year-old has been working for the DFB since January 2022, he was not involved in the decision at the time after Germany failed in the group stage of a World Cup for the second time in a row in Qatar.
"Oliver Bierhoff was still there then, now it's Rudi Völler. It's not my decision who becomes national coach," said Watzke, adding: "But the basic attitude was simply: we're carrying on with Hansi Flick. And Hansi is an excellent coach, you can see right now what he's doing there at Barcelona." Watzke still had a "feeling" that after "such a failure" things could become difficult. "In hindsight I was probably right as well, the games afterwards were also a disaster!"
Why did Thomas Tuchel and Hans-Joachim Watzke fall out?
Even so, Watzke's thought experiment over Tuchel comes as a surprise. The relationship between the long-serving Borussia Dortmund boss and the former BVB coach was long seen as broken. Their dispute stemmed from the attack on the Bundesliga club's team bus on the way to the Champions League quarter-final against AS Monaco in April 2017. Tuchel, still in office at the time, later presented it as if Watzke had decided his team still had to play. In fact, some players are said to have decided themselves to play.
At the time, UEFA rescheduled the match for the next day at 6.45pm. Failing to turn up would probably have meant an automatic defeat. On the other hand, some players, including then captain Marcel Schmelzer and Nuri Sahin, later revealed that after the attack they could not spare any thought for football. BVB lost 3-2 and went out after a 3-1 defeat in the second leg.
When asked whether Tuchel's version had been the "greatest human disappointment" for him personally, Watzke replied: "It was certainly a big one. Yes! Yes!" How long did he struggle with being portrayed publicly in a way that did not correspond to the truth? "That then becomes a huge problem, because if you no longer keep the internal processes to yourself, but all of that goes outside and then is distorted as well. But I realised that no matter what I said, or no matter what others said. There were simply certain circles that just wanted that. That it simply fitted well that a soulless football official tells the players what to do. That just fitted the picture well."
Have Hans-Joachim Watzke and Thomas Tuchel made up again?
Still, Watzke stressed that forgiving Tuchel had taken no effort. "It's not even about forgiving or not forgiving. I still consider Tuchel an excellent coach," he said, before adding: "At that moment we had a massive disagreement, that's clear. But at some point things always move on. And when we see each other today: we talk to each other properly, we speak. And when the English asked me what I thought of Tuchel, I only said: You can do it blind. You'll get one of the best coaches. Thomas Tuchel was also under maximum pressure."
Tuchel had "imposed that pressure on himself", Watzke explained. "And as I said, in the end, even afterwards, I always had respect for that, because I don't know whether, when you were sitting on the bus at that moment, things might have felt different to you again, because that simply has to be respected as well."
BVB may have found a conciliatory end to the season in 2017 by winning the cup, but Tuchel still left afterwards. After spells at PSG, Chelsea and FC Bayern Munich, the 53-year-old took over the England national team in 2025. Watzke, meanwhile, played a decisive part in installing Jürgen Klopp as Julian Nagelsmann's successor after the 2026 World Cup.
