Departure won’t weaken Germany: Stan
Klinsmann, who guided the side to third place in the World Cup, stepped down from the position yesterday.
Joachim Löw, Klinsmann’s assistant, has been appointed as the new coach and has signed a two-year contract.
But Staunton, whose side begin their European Championship qualification campaign against the Germans on September 2 in Stuttgart, has warned against complacency following the announcement.
Staunton said: “The change of manager doesn’t alter the fact that they have a really strong squad including some of the stars of the World Cup.
“The German side impressed everyone at the World Cup and the country is still on a high having hosted a really successful tournament.
“Germany have one of the best teams in the world, the competition’s top goalscorer and were narrowly beaten by the eventual World Champions in the semi-final.
“We face a huge task in our first qualifying match on their home patch but we must concentrate on our preparations and ensure we give everything on the day.
“Germany will also be wary of us and while they may be ninth in the world, they won’t want to slip up against a team ranked 39th and fourth seeds in the group.”
Staunton isn’t overly concerned by the Irish rankings — 30 places behind the Germans. A new method has been used to calculate this the first rankings since the World Cup. According to FIFA, it “not only introduces major changes in points allocation and the assessment of the opposition’s strength, but also makes such factors as the importance of the match and regional strength easier to understand. This new formula and the big points hauls gained from World Cup matches has led to a complete shake-up in the ranking. Besides the effect of the World Cup matches, the change in the evaluation period has also led to a major shift. Now only the last four years (48 months) count, with each year weighted differently.”
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