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EM Quarter of the DFB: A guest at the business partner - Sport
- The DFB squad will be staying at the Adidas site in Herzogenaurach during the 2020 European Championship.
- However, the team will play at least two preliminary round matches almost 200 kilometers away in Munich.
- DFB director Oliver Bierhoff assures that the decision is "no marketing story".
Delegations of the DFB with the national coach in advance were spotted in several places within reach of the city of Munich, Tegernsee about, in Murnau and in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and everywhere had put much effort to Joachim Loew and entourage the benefits of local conditions to explain. But the competition for the privilege to host the national team during the European Championship in 2020 has then been made by a candidate who is 200 kilometers away from the finish line in Munich. The contract was awarded to the municipality Herzogenaurach, or better said: the company Adidas, which will set up the DFB team on their spacious premises called "World of Sports" a custom-made accommodation.
Ideally, this would be a re-edition of the 2014 Campo Bahia success motive, this time not on the Brazilian Atlantic beach at the mouth of the much-praised Joao di Tiba stream, but in a Middle-Franconian commune where the nearest running waters are Bimbach and Mean Aurach mean and by nature not quite as impressive effect unfold.
The host Adidas is an age-old business partner of the DFB, to which the association has remained faithful despite occasional temptations by competing companies for generations, which should not have played a completely minor role in the selection. DFB director Oliver Bierhoff, who also serves as executive quartermaster, said that the decision was "not a marketing or partner story", but a choice based on practical needs.
Significantly less sea in sight than in Campo Bahia in 2014: a view of the Adidas premises where the DFB team will train in one year.
At least two preliminary matches will be played by the DFB in Munich
The European championship number 16 is a complicated event, it is held with its 24 participating countries in twelve cities, one of which is even on Asian soil - Baku in Azerbaijan. The final round with semi-finals and final takes place in London. Assuming the qualification, the German team will play during the preliminary round in Munich and in Budapest, possibly comes with the quarter-final another home game. A hotel in the immediate vicinity of Munich would have offered logical advantages, the choice was still on Herzogenaurach. The other houses that were examined were "interesting" but not the right one, "we had to make compromises," Bierhoff said.
On the campus of the sporting goods manufacturer, the DFB manager expects an atmosphere that offers both peace and quiet as well as a little variety and life on the doorstep, because the company grounds are located in addition to office buildings for 5600 employees, cafes and restaurants, sports and green spaces "It should be a mix of working and relaxing".
In Watutinki, on the outskirts of Moscow, there was too little (of peace and quiet) and too much of the misguided World Cup 2018 (the real life). Only the taciturn Russian guardsmen joined the national players, some of them sat mute, but constantly between trees and plants and were soon baptized by the DFB inmates "forest people".
The DFB team would move only for the semifinals
The distance to the games in the Munich Arena does not deter Löw and Bierhoff. The team will travel by bus to the state capital the day before the games and move to the hotel for one night. For air travel is the airport Nuremberg ready in 25 minutes, where there is no Nachtflugverbot. The DFB is preparing for a long stay in Franconia. "We would stay in Herzogenaurach for the maximum time," says Bierhoff. A move would only be made if Germany reached the semi-finals and had to move to London.
Asked whether the accommodation was an overrated topic during a tournament or a factor with 10 to 15 percent profit sharing, Bierhoff answered that although the team home is very important, the weather is even more important. In the mythical Campo Bahia in Brazil, after the move, not every detail of the new buildings had been voted ("Sami Khedira has reported that his room is flooded three times in the morning"), but that did not bother anyone, because everybody prefers to stay outside Atlantic air were as in the bungalow. This time the players should be involved in the design. The DFB is building a neighborhood to measure.
