Four years after his name emerged as one of the legion of coaches being speculated to take over the Black Stars, German legend, Ottmar Hitzfeld says he is surprised by that honour even though he has never considered extending his exploits outside Germany.
He says he would have found it difficult to coach the Black Stars because his philosophy had not been to handle a team outside Europe.
“This is because of language problems. As you can see, I’m not literate in the English Language and I guess it’s going to be difficult to coach the Black Stars”, he conceded.
Hitzfeld’s name came as one of the trainers eyeing the coaching job of the Stars after the departure of Serbian, Milovan Raejevac, and his agents were reported to be ready for negotiations with the Ghana Fooball Association.
But the 65-year-old German tactician told the Graphic Sports in an interview during his recent visit to Ghana to launch Allsport.com.gh, a sports news platform, said that he even though it was the first time he was hearing of an African team that needed his services as he was personally unaware of the move.
“Indeed, nobody told me about that and to be honest with you this is the first time !’m hearing this. Of course, this is one job I would have found difficult taking up because of the challenges involved”, he stated.
Hitzfeld, has arguably, restricted himself to Germany his home country, neighbouring Austria and Switzerland where his coaching career, spanning three decades, began with clubs like Aurrel FC and Grasshoppers, where he worked with former Ghanaian international, Opoku Nti now CEO of Kumasi Asante Kotoko.
At the height of his coaching excellence, Hitzfeld still remained at his native Germany neighbourhood, moving to Germany to handle Borussia Dotmund and Bayern Munich to win titles and now back in Swizerland as technical head of the national team.
Hitzfield disclosed that if he had remained closer to his native Germany, it was in consonnance with his age-long and time-tested principles.
He conceded though that working with African players was always a great experience because they were technically gifted physically and very strong, saying he still had fond memories of Opoku Nti and who Osei Kuffuour was key to all his accomplishments with Bayern Munich.
“ I think African players have all that it takes to make their teams reach the ultimate at the global stage”, he contended.
