Lothar Matthaeus has claimed Liverpool midfielder Dietmar Hamann was one of several German players who tried to install him as national team coach just before the start of Euro 2000.

Matthaus also named Anfield-bound defender Markus Babbel and Jens Jeremies among the group who wanted him to replace Erich Ribbeck.

According to Matthaeus, the plotting came to a head at a pre-tournament training camp in Majorca.

'Hamann, Jeremies, Babbel and several others came to see me during the Majorca camp and said to me 'you should do it, you would do a lot better,' said Matthaeus.

Ribbeck quit after Germany were eliminated from the tournament after the group stage, their worst showing at a major tournament in more than 50 years.

The Germans have since been agonising over the team's poor showing with a week of non-stop finger-pointing. They are searching for a new coach.

'They wanted me to replace Ribbeck,' Matthaeus said. 'They stormed up to me and said we have to get rid of Ribbeck before the tournament. They said I should take over the job and train the team.'

The players hatched the plot after Ribbeck tried out a new defensive strategy during a secret training session just before the tournament. Bild said Ribbeck dropped the experiment 'because the players didn't understand it.'

Matthaeus, who retired from international soccer after Euro 2000 with a world record 150 caps, said he told the rebels he was not interested in the scheme.

'I never shoot a coach down. It was thus clear that I would not do it. But I reacted. I called Franz Beckenbauer and asked for his advice,' he said.

Beckenbauer, his mentor and a vice-president of the German Football Federation, also rejected the mutiny.

'That's out of the question,' Beckenbauer said, according to Matthaeus. The newspaper said Ribbeck was unaware until now about the mutiny brewing in the training camp.