Matthias Sammer's cold feet ensures a hot fall-out in Germany

"Schadenfreude" is England's favourite German word – just ahead of "Schweinehund", probably – but it's high-time the Oxford dictionary recognised another Teutonic gem: "Fremdschämen". It works as a noun or a verb and describes the horrific discomfort one experiences when faced with the actions of a third party who are completely oblivious as to how awfully embarrassing they are. A bit like working alongside a real-life David Brent, in other words. Or watching a TV interview with Matthias Sammer this weekend.

Subscribers of German Sky have long gotten used to the former Dortmund and Stuttgart tyro's special type of punditry, essentially a 1980s stream of consciousness about willpower, commitment and courageous tackles, wrapped up in gratuitously complicated syntax. With his modish specs and suave manners, Sammer is the acceptable face of football conservatism, his retro musings too predictable and boring to cause any offence. Brilliant achievements as a player and the 2002 championship with Dortmund as a coach have landed the 43-year-old a cushy pen-pusher job as sporting director at the German Football Association. It's a position of great esteem and little practical power.

But Sammer is too ambitious to be stuck in middle management forever. When Hamburger SV asked him to come in as director of football for the hapless Bastian Reinhardt a couple of weeks ago, he jumped at the opportunity. A few meetings and highly detailed contract negotiations later, the club were poised to announce his signature on Friday, but in a surprising turn of events, the self-styled "fire-head" smothered the flames. He would stay with the FA after all. "After careful consideration and above all due to the situation that a quick decision was necessary, this is the decision that I have reached," he said, backtracking faster than a Porsche 911 that has its steering wheel fixed underneath the rear window. "It was morally important to me", he added, "to make a clear commitment to my employers."

It'll be interesting to hear his views the next time someone is complaining about a player's lack of loyalty. Sammer's attempts at passing himself off as the Bundesliga's Lester Burnham, a kind of middle-aged fool temporarily besotted by newer, sexier prospects, were beyond nauseating. "It was a flirt that was interesting for all those involved," he said on Sunday night's Sky90 talk show. "But it's a problem when one isn't careful. I have a love, that is the German FA. After five years, I fell a little bit for another set-up. I was ready for a new set-up. And maybe I was ready for a new love. But when I'm getting involved with a new love, I need to know all the details first." "Urrgh" is the word that comes to mind.

One scurrilous rumour doing the rounds in Hamburg is that Sammer changed tack following a phone call from Uli Hoeness who offered him the Bayern job. It's a theory that cannot be totally discounted but unlikely: Louis van Gaal still has plenty of support on the board and in the dressing room. The explanation for his U-turn is more prosaic. It seems that faced with an ultimatum from the FA to make up his mind one way or the other, Sammer simply got cold feet. He blamed Hamburg's leaking of the talks to the media and family considerations but these things hadn't stopped him before Friday.

Sammer's late "Nein" leaves Hamburg in a ditch; "the chaos continues" wrote Sport-Bild. "They all must have smoked the same stuff," joked Reinhold Beckmann in Sportschau. The northern giants tried to get Jogi Löw's chief scout Urs Siegenthaler to do the job in the summer, but he ultimately refused. A 1-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt on Friday night was not enough to put a more positive spin on things, on the contrary: the manager, Armin Veh, himself without a future, took the opportunity to give dead man walking Reinhardt another kick to the head. "He's only 35, he can't do this job on his own," said the coach.

Sammer fingered Ernst-Otto Rieckhoff, a member of the supervisory board, for the failed negotiations. His public briefings had created "too much pressure too soon", Sammer felt. Whether this is true or not, is almost immaterial, because the underlying accusation certainly is. "Hamburg are the talking shop of the league," wrote Süddeutsche Zeitung. "Everything is being talked to death in this club, before an idea can become a project and a job interview can become a contract. Confidentiality, an important value in the merchant city Hamburg, is unheard of at the HSV."

There is bigger, more important fall-out, however. In a few days, Sammer has managed what his arch-rivals Löw and Oliver Bierhoff couldn't: he's fatally undermined his own position. Before the World Cup, Sammer was seen as the heir apparent to Löw and there were robust disagreements about the power to appoint/dismiss the German Under-21 manager (currently Rainer Adrion). After the aborted divorce, however, Sammer will have to endure the other side calling the shots. "He's in danger of ending up a youth coach," wrote Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

A few hours after his change of heart, Sammer and his wife were photographed partying with assorted VIPs in a Tyrolian ski hut, at a "Weisswurst"-Event. His credibility as a football manager has taken a battering in the process. Wolfsburg, it is being reported, were frustrated by his dithering, too. You can't but feel embarrassed on his behalf. And a little sorry, perhaps. The man once destined to be the new Beckenbauer is firmly on course to be the next Lothar Matthäus instead.

Talking points

Köln's emphatic 3-0 win over catastrophic Werder was the result of the weekend and easily the best performance of the season from Frank Schaefer's team. Even Lukas Podolski was excellent in the No10 position: two goals raised his tally to seven. The night before, the striker had been embroiled in a bit of controversy, when a leading newspaper reported his attendance at the aforementioned white sausage shindig in Tyrol. Alas, the "Prinz Poldi" in question turned out to be (the genuine) Prince Poldi of Bavaria, not his namesake from Colonia.

Werder were plunged right into the relegation fight but Köln, up in 15th now, had little time to celebrate: plenty of strife behind the scenes dampened spirits. President Wolfgang Overath is faced by a popular revolt of members who are trying to oust him from power. They want to force a vote of no confidence and have requested the contact details of 52,000 members in order to secure the 7,500 signatories needed for the petition. Köln have reacted in an exemplary manner, befitting cherished democratic ideals: instead of handing out the details, they sent out a nasty letter and a post-card. "Do you agree that your data is forwarded?" it asked. Helpfully, "no" was the only available box to tick.

The Dortmund players couldn't hide their disappointment about conceding an 84th-minute equaliser against Stuttgart in a match they seemed to have won many times over. Mario Götze's opener was followed by a typical deluge of attacking football that had two snags: Dortmund missed one chance after the other and forgot to shut up shop. "Playing this openly was a major tactical mistake," said Mats Hummels. VfB's Russian striker Pavel Pogrebnyak snatched a lucky if not undeserved draw at the death. "We didn't do enough to win today," said Jürgen Klopp. Or perhaps they did too much? In any case, they're still 11 points clear at the top, a gap big enough to draw a few more games. "If anybody is put off balance by this, they didn't have it to begin with," said Klopp.

Borussia's draw and setbacks for Mainz (0-1 v Wolfsburg, Simon Kjaer) and Hannover (0-1 v Schalke, Raúl) made it Bayern's weekend but they just can't stop infighting. Before the 5-1 win over Kaiserslautern, Uli Hoeness had again (mildly) criticised Louis van Gaal's stubbornness. The Dutchman reacted sanguinely ("he's an icon, he can say whatever he wants") but was angered that sporting director Christian Nerlinger had told reporters about Franck Ribéry's longer than expected injury break. "This is not the job of the sporting director," complained Van Gaal. Nerlinger, for many months the staunchest defender of the coach, lost his nerve. "I find that ridiculous," said the 37-year-old. "It's not the job of the coach to comment on my statements in public. As his direct superior and person responsible, it is my duty and right to talk to about these things." Will Van Gaal add another "Na" to the "Na Na Na Na Na" and counter with "It's not the sporting director's job to comment on my comments on him"? At least things looked a little better on the pitch. Arjen Robben's impressive return to the fold and three goals from Mario Gomez helped the champions stay in touch with the Champions League places, even if there was the usual rubbishness at the back.

Results: Hamburg 1–0 Frankfurt, Bayern 5–1 Kaiserslautern, Dortmund 1–1 Stuttgart, Mainz 0–1 Wolfsburg, Freiburg 1–1 Nürnberg, Hannover 0–1 Schalke, Köln 3–0 Bremen, Gladbach 1–3 Leverkusen, Hoffenheim 2–2 St Pauli.