Tedesco leaves with a check for just under €1 million and there are certainly people on this Earth more to be pitied. But the way in which the RBFA managed the German’s last weeks is unworthy of a federation. Especially with a national A team that is a member of the world top-10 (at least according to the FIFA ranking). Firing him on January 1st would not have cost more money than 16 days later.
gullSeeing names of successors coming out was a humiliation for Tedesco.
Mannaert had several telephone contacts with Tedesco during the month of December, without ever meeting him physically. Contacts that looked like a job interview. Then nothing for weeks. The coach continued to follow the performances of the potential Devils but always on television, never at the stadium. And never even by checking on them on the phone. Meanwhile, names of successors were circulating in the Belgian press. A humiliation for a coach who did not deserve that, he who had refused the offer from Naples in February to concentrate on the Euro.
-The federation could have decided more quickly. After contacts with Tedesco, Mannaert’s response quickly became clear in his head: he could find better. But we had to wait until we got to 2025 to reduce severance pay a little. And then you had to be sure to find someone in time. In the worst case scenario, the German remained a valid plan B just in case, with the barrage against Ukraine approaching slowly but surely (March 20 and 23).
The Devils are promising but the future coach will not have an easy job. He will already have to decide on the cases of Thibaut Courtois, Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku. Does he keep all the old ones? Just some? Does he trust the youth who have a different mentality and who will not accept that too many privileges are given to the remnants of the golden generation? Tedesco will watch all this from afar. Time will tell if his work was as bad as was estimated at the federation.
