BERLIN, June 26 (Reuters) - Christoph Daum re-emerged on Monday as the favourite to become Germany's new coach after a bid to pair him in a 'dream team' coaching duo with Bayern Munich's Ottmar Hitzfeld failed over the weekend.

Daum's club Bayer Leverkusen does not want to release him from his contract, wich runs for another season, but signs are growing that the 46-year-old master motivator might divide his time between club and country at first.

Franz Beckenbauer, the most respected figure in German football, said he had dropped his reservations to the so-called 'half-Daum' solution after a week of manoeuvring following the national team's humiliating early exit from Euro 2000.

'The ideal solution would be to have Christoph Daum as national coach immediately,' Bayern chairman Beckenbauer wrote in his column for the Bild newspaper.

'But his contract runs for another year and I can understand that his club will not release him completely. You can't ask Leverkusen to look for a new coach just a few weeks before the new season.'

As Germany agonises over the worst tournament showing by a national team in more than 50 years, details of an alleged player revolt against outgoing coach Erich Ribbeck started to come to light.

Soccer magazine Kicker alleged squad members from Bayern Munich had turned to club bosses - Beckenbauer is also vice-president of the German Football Federation (DFB) - to seek to oust Ribbeck after a 2-1 defeat against the Netherlands in February.

Nothing came of the plot, and a second rebellion allegedly followed at the pre-Euro 2000 training camp on Majorca, where players sought to install veteran libero Lothar Matthaeus in a coaching role after he sustained a thigh injury.

But nothing came of the unrest. Ribbeck came under fire from defender Markus Babbel for failing to build a core of leading players, being a poor organiser and lacking tactical acumen.

'We didn't train as we should have done in the tactical area or in set pieces,' Babbel told Kicker. 'We played three times against teams with a flat back four, but we only ever practiced once how to outplay such a defensive formation.'

'We are concentrating completely on preparing for next season. I can't just say: 'I'm off. That's it.' Daum wrote in a column for Kicker.

But the rest of Daum's article looked like a coaching manifesto, focussing on the commitment and tactics, fitness, technical skills and teamwork he said were needed to rebuild German soccer.

DFB bosses and top club bosses are due to hold secret talks this week to see if they can resolve the crisis, but no decision on choosing a new coach is expected before the end of Euro 2000 next weekend, DFB vice-president Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder said.