In early December, Domenico Tedesco was sitting in his dental clinic, waiting for time to pass to find out what was happening in the football world, after his sudden dismissal from the German club Leipzig.
Tedesco read about the decision to sack Roberto Martinez from coaching the Belgium national team following their exit from the group stage of the World Cup in Qatar.
German Tedesco told the German news agency (dpa): Immediately I sent a picture to my friends and wrote, This will be a great job, good team and good players, but I did not think that this moment would end in this way.
Tedesco, 37, who was born in Italy, took over the coaching of the Belgium national team in the month following Martinez’s dismissal, and started his career with the team by beating its Swedish host 3-0 at the start of the two teams’ campaign in the European Nations Cup qualifiers (Euro 2024), and then he will now face the German national team in a match Friendly in Cologne on Tuesday.
The two teams were eliminated from the group stage of the World Cup, but he stressed that the German national team has “enormous potential and wonderful players,” but the fact that he will lead the Belgium national team in the European Nations Cup hosted by his country, Germany, did not occur to him when he was thinking about the position.
And the young German coach pointed out: It is not that I said that the European Nations Cup will be held in Germany, so I have to become a coach for a national team somewhere. It did not go like that, it is a wonderful story, but the road is still long before reaching this point.
Belgium plays in one group with Sweden, Estonia and Azerbaijan, in addition to the Austrian national team, which is led by German coach Ralf Rangnick.
Tedesco said: It was right from the first moment, it’s great to resume my career with a senior national team after the World Cup, which did not go as planned, and to change some things in the process.
