Germany football team s fitness coach Kugel quits

Berlin Feb 24 (IANS) Yann-Benjamin Kugel has resigned as the German football teams fitness coach the German football federation DFB announced.

Kugel will not be a member of the current world champions support staff at the fixtures against Spain and Brazil in March DFB said in a statement on Friday.

"I ve been thinking a lot about my career future over the last few weeks. After some intense and fantastic years with the national team I d like a new challenge and utilise my experience and expertise otherwise in the world of football " Kugel said in the statement.

"It was a difficult decision for me to leave the national team but I m sure that I ll meet new challenges and I ll be successful with those if I make a complete cut from my current work " the 38-year-old added.

Head coach Joachim Löw said: "Benny Kugel was always a solid and reliable part of our team. The highlight of our work together was the World Cup in 2014."

National team manager Oliver Bierhoff said: "He has a huge amount of expertise and experience and I can imagine that we ll see him around again.

"Thanks to Benny informing us of his decision in good time we have enough time now to adapt our plans before the World Cup."

--IANS
pur/hs