Berlin: Thomas Tuchel on Friday threw open his future as Borussia Dortmund’s head coach in the aftermath of his public disagreement with the Bundesliga side’s CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke.
When asked in a press conference if he will stay on next season, Tuchel replied: “I am the wrong person to talk to about this. It would be naive from me, after a week like this, to say ‘we’ll keep going as things are.’
“I feel strong enough to put this aside and feel compelled to concentrate on the sport.
“If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I would have told you: ‘I’m quite sure that I will be the coach here next season’.
“There have been so many untruths and false quotes this week which dramatically over-stepped the mark for me.
“I have had to put my feelings aside, even if that’s been difficult.”
Dortmund are third in the Bundesliga and need a win at Augsburg on Saturday to stay on course for an automatic Champions League spot, but the off-field focus is on the rift between Tuchel and Watzke.
Tuchel, 43, replaced Jurgen Klopp as Dortmund’s coach for the 2015-16 season and has a year left on his contract.
However last Saturday, chief executive Watzke admitted his relationship with Tuchel was strained by the decision to play their Champions League quarter-final first-leg a day after last month’s bomb attack on their team bus.
Tuchel complained bitterly in the aftermath of the 3-2 defeat by Monaco that he had not been involved in the decision, but Watzke says that is not true.
Contract extension talks would normally take place at the end of this season, but Tuchel was cool on the subject.
“A contract extension is not a certificate or a medal you simply get hung around your neck,” he said.
“There are conversations at eye-level and agreements to keep working together.
“I am an employee and I do everything I can to achieve the goals we have.
“For everything else, we need a little patience and a little distance.”
Tuchel has been linked with moves away from Dortmund and would unlikely be out of a top job for long where he to leave.
Meanwhile, Bayern Munich defender and former international Holger Badstuber will not return to the German champions after his loan spell at Schalke 04 at the end of the season, the Bavarians said on Friday.
Badstuber, plagued throughout his career by serious injuries, had joined Schalke in January to get match practice.
The 28-year-old, who joined Bayern 15 years ago, is likely to continue his career abroad as a free agent, Bayern said.
“It was clear from the start that Holger Badstuber, after his loan spell at Schalke, would seek a new experience most likely abroad,” Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said in a statement, adding his contract ran out next month.
Badstuber, who has earned 31 caps for Germany since 2010, suffered consecutive cruciate ligament tears in 2012 and 2013 that kept him out for long spells before several more injuries in recent seasons.
— Agencies
