My theory on why Germany is struggling!

[Zwanzigoetzel]

DFB reform. Well, is the DFB structure really the culprit of Germans NT's problems like many are saying?

Many of Klinsmann's supporters point out that he is finally tackling the deep rooted rotten infrastructure issues of the German Soccer Association. He kicked out some well known figures including Sepp Maier and other well known celebrities, the chief scout is Swiss, the fitness trainer American and we almost would have had a hockey coach as the sports director. Is all that supposed to help us to have a better nationalteam in the long run?

Didn't the current structure work just fine? We made it to the WC final 7 times and won 3 of them, within the last 30 years we always at least made it to the quarterfinals of the WC, we made it to the Euro final 5 times and won 3 of them.

I don't want to say that there is no room for some changes and improvement in the structure, but despite pissing people off, I'm still trying to figure out what Klinsmann is trying to accomplish or how all of this is supposed to help our NT.

Here is what I think should be the major focus point to have a great national team in the long run. PROMOTE THE YOUTH! About 12 years ago when I was playing in Germany the problem already creeped into the German leagues.We had great talent on our team, including myself. But when we were done with the youth league (A-Youth it is called) they dropped us like hot potatoes and rather spend millions of $$$ to buy players from other foreign countries. We ended up in the third or below non-pro leagues.

The situation now is far worse than 12 years ago. Correct me if I'm wrong but the Bundesliga has about 60% foreign players, more than any other league including the EPL.

So how can you produce a solid NT, if you don't have any German players???

My solution:

- Work at the roots. It starts with the little village teams and goes all the way to Bayern Muenchen. Find the young talents and promote them.

- Reduce the amount of foreign players allowed to play at the professional level. I think 70% German nationals and 30% foreign players is a good ratio.

Now is it Klinsmann's job to worry about all of that? No it is not. His job is to take the most talented players of the Bundesliga and form a great Nationalteam that has the ability to bring home the trophies.

[poorvi]

I agree with you.

There must be lesser number of foreign players. Right now inspite of having many foreign players, the bundesliga teams are doing very poorly in the champions league.None of the big footballing nations like Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Holland have many of their starters playing in the Bundesliga.There are atleast 5 starters for Brazil in Serie A, but only 1 starter in Bundesliga. Its mainly players from countires whose teams are relatively weaker, who ply their trade in the bundesliga. German youth system was always weak, as compared to the French or English or Dutch youth systems. Even when the senior side used to be world class, the youth teams rarely made a mark in u-21, u-19 tournaments.

[Alex_K]

German youth system was always weak, as compared to the French or English or Dutch youth systems. Even when the senior side used to be world class, the youth teams rarely made a mark in u-21, u-19 tournaments.

If you want to use youth tournaments as a measurement of succcess:

Neither England or the Netherlands ever reached a World Youth Cup final (U-20 or U-16/17), Germany reached 3.

In the European championships (U-23/U-21, U-18/U-19, U-16/U-17) England and Germany have won 3 trophies each. The Netherlands have never won an European trophy as well.

[meininki]

Here is what I think should be the major focus point to have a great national team in the long run. PROMOTE THE YOUTH! About 12 years ago when I was playing in Germany the problem already creeped into the German leagues.We had great talent on our team, including myself. But when we were done with the youth league (A-Youth it is called) they dropped us like hot potatoes and rather spend millions of $$$ to buy players from other foreign countries. We ended up in the third or below non-pro leagues.

The situation now is far worse than 12 years ago. Correct me if I'm wrong but the Bundesliga has about 60% foreign players, more than any other league including the EPL.


You're absolutely right. Actually I was at a panel discussion with Hannes Löhr last night and he talked a little about that problem.
When he was still U21 coach, Gehrhard Mayer-Vorfelder (now DFB president, then president of VfB Stuttgart) came to him and said something had to be done for young German players. Löhr then asked him, whether he knew how many Germans had played for Stuttgart in the last match. Mayer-Vorfelder didn't know, Löhr told him the answer was two (one was the keeper)...
Only when Stuttgart were facing bankruptcy they started giving young players a chance.

Btw, Köln is the team with the most German players, they usually start about 6-8.

[stefan10]

This is nothing new but the solution is complicated or simply not possible.

We can not just limite the foreign players by law or rule because that would violate european laws.

So the only solution would be a voluntary contract but nobody believs that this will happen. We have to face it football is a huge huge business and clubs coaches etc face a lot of pressure and to buy a foreign palyer is often the easier solution than to hope that the young talents will solve the problem and archive the goals.

There is no doubt that the DFB could establish a better system but as said before where should these young talents play. We have the same problem in the first three clases.

We are not the only ones that have these problems. How many english players play in the best englsih teams. All better and bigger european leagues have more or less the same problems.

[Zwanzigoetzel]

This is nothing new but the solution is complicated or simply not possible.

We can not just limite the foreign players by law or rule because that would violate european laws.

So the only solution would be a voluntary contract but nobody believs that this will happen. We have to face it football is a huge huge business and clubs coaches etc face a lot of pressure and to buy a foreign palyer is often the easier solution than to hope that the young talents will solve the problem and archive the goals.

There is no doubt that the DFB could establish a better system but as said before where should these young talents play. We have the same problem in the first three clases.

We are not the only ones that have these problems. How many english players play in the best englsih teams. All better and bigger european leagues have more or less the same problems.

Well, you are right, more or less all European leagues deal with the same issue. The Bundesliga MORE however. Here some stats:

Bundesliga: Has as of last month 78 players that would be eligible for the German NT.

EPL: 124 are eligible for England's NT

Italian A league: 133 eligible for Italian's NT

Primera Division: 132 for the Spanish NT

So without a doubt it seems a bigger problem in Germany.

[96Squig]

(...)
Primera Division: 132 for the Spanish NT
(...)
If you see at how the Spanish NT performs (and always has performed), Germany ma be going the right way ;-)

Plus, you are awarte of the fact that we have 2 teams less than most other big leagues?

[Bayerntone]

The nationals who opt to play overseas are just a fraction of the total qualified players but they are highly likely to be selected to represent their country.

So the above statistics are very loose indicators, far from conclusive.

[Alex_K]

Bundesliga: Has as of last month 78 players that would be eligible for the German NT.


How did you come to that number? I counted almost 40 players on the rosters of Bayern, HSV and Bremen alone.

["Eisenfuß" Eilts]

The situation now is far worse than 12 years ago. Correct me if I'm wrong but the Bundesliga has about 60% foreign players, more than any other league including the EPL.

So how can you produce a solid NT, if you don't have any German players???


This fact was true till about 5 years ago, here the current data:

Now in the squads of the Bundesliga 43% of the players are foreigners,
in 2.Bundesliga 37%. (source: http://www.bundesliga.de/intern/hilfe/)

[stefan10]

Well, you are right, more or less all European leagues deal with the same issue. The Bundesliga MORE however. Here some stats:

Bundesliga: Has as of last month 78 players that would be eligible for the German NT.

EPL: 124 are eligible for England's NT

Italian A league: 133 eligible for Italian's NT

Primera Division: 132 for the Spanish NT

So without a doubt it seems a bigger problem in Germany.



You are right but the real problem is how to change that??

As said we have the common european law so europeans are no foreigners and every rule that wants to change that would be illegal.

To analyse or to mention the problem is one thing but to solve it a copmplete different one.
I do not see a solution with the help of a certain law or anything like that. It is up to the differetn clubs to change that or to face a german national team that is not competitive.
manager have to realize the market value of the national team and the advantages for their own clubs. A good national team at WC or Eueo means more fans more sponsorship more tv money for the clubs.
So they should have every interest to have a good german national team

[AGF Aarhus]

Interesting thoughts here.

I'm not sure how many of Germany's troubles are structural and how many are simply the result of a cyclical decline in the talent pool.

Since there is obviously nothing that can be done about a cyclical decline, it makes sense to focus on the structural issues.

How do you develop youth better? The question has to be how do you get clubs to invest more in youth. I personally do not have much faith in national training programmes, although other may feel differently. I can't believe I'm writing this, but Blatter's proposal to require clubs to field a certain number of 'home grown' players is probably the most workable way of doing this, and avoids sticky legal issues. Limited senior squad sizes would also help. Obviously, both of these things need to be done on a European wide level to avoid an unfair disadvantage.

I'm less convinced about the harmful effect of foreigners in the league. Simply put, you need the country's top players to be playing against the top players in the world as much as possible. That means either importing or exporting talent. The question is how do you attract top level players from abroad, but keep out middle and lower level players who may take spots away from German players looking to develop. It also means letting players like Ballack go (as indeed many of Germany's top players have done in the past). To address the first issue, though, perhaps that means finding a way of increasing the cost of employing foreign players.

I don't blame clubs for fielding the best team possible of the lowest possible cost. When the Enlgish press came down on Wenger for not fielding any Englishmen, my thought was 'Is he the Engand coach or the Arsenal coach.' A club manager's job is to win trophies for his club, not the make up for the deficiencies of the national team. If Germany does not have a world class central defender, then Bayern should not have a German in it's central defense.

So, my solution is to go ahead with Blatter's recomendation to require home grown players and limit senior squad size, which should encourage clubs to spend more on youth development. Secondly, find some mechanism of making foreign players more expensive, or at least limiting the ability to hire cheap foreigners (isn't there a minimum foreign player salary in the Netherlands?). This should help mid and lower level German players develop. I'm not concerned at all about top level talent coming or going.

[ForeverRed]

well...I believe there is a talented youth pool coming up in Germany at the moment...and the problem is being worked on, just not enough for a full bloom to occur.

I believe the solution is to export some of this young talent and let them develop in foreign leagues, Spain, Italy, England preferably. It is there where they get experience needed to really grow and compete on an international level against these big teams Germany doesn't seem to be able to beat.

It seems to me as the focus is how to develop them domestically, but the solution might just be outside Germany's boarders.

[shutoutj]

You have to remember that they're still kids though. When they're 17, or so, they're much likely to get homesick and feel alienated in a foreign country than they would be at, say, 21.

Although if you're talking about young players as in those who are already 20, they have to make an impression in the Bundesliga before they will get interest from other leagues. Which is hard to do with the overwhelming number of foreigners in the league.

[Zwanzigoetzel]

Interesting thoughts here.

I'm not sure how many of Germany's troubles are structural and how many are simply the result of a cyclical decline in the talent pool.

Since there is obviously nothing that can be done about a cyclical decline, it makes sense to focus on the structural issues.

How do you develop youth better? The question has to be how do you get clubs to invest more in youth. I personally do not have much faith in national training programmes, although other may feel differently. I can't believe I'm writing this, but Blatter's proposal to require clubs to field a certain number of 'home grown' players is probably the most workable way of doing this, and avoids sticky legal issues. Limited senior squad sizes would also help. Obviously, both of these things need to be done on a European wide level to avoid an unfair disadvantage.

I'm less convinced about the harmful effect of foreigners in the league. Simply put, you need the country's top players to be playing against the top players in the world as much as possible. That means either importing or exporting talent. The question is how do you attract top level players from abroad, but keep out middle and lower level players who may take spots away from German players looking to develop. It also means letting players like Ballack go (as indeed many of Germany's top players have done in the past). To address the first issue, though, perhaps that means finding a way of increasing the cost of employing foreign players.

I don't blame clubs for fielding the best team possible of the lowest possible cost. When the Enlgish press came down on Wenger for not fielding any Englishmen, my thought was 'Is he the Engand coach or the Arsenal coach.' A club manager's job is to win trophies for his club, not the make up for the deficiencies of the national team. If Germany does not have a world class central defender, then Bayern should not have a German in it's central defense.

So, my solution is to go ahead with Blatter's recomendation to require home grown players and limit senior squad size, which should encourage clubs to spend more on youth development. Secondly, find some mechanism of making foreign players more expensive, or at least limiting the ability to hire cheap foreigners (isn't there a minimum foreign player salary in the Netherlands?). This should help mid and lower level German players develop. I'm not concerned at all about top level talent coming or going.


Not a bad idea, not at all. Interesting though that the above mentioned discussion seems to have no effect on attendance. The German stadiums are packed, people love their players and are passionate about their teams! So if I was Rudi Asshauer from Schalke for example, whose stadium is always sold out, I'd ask myself why change ANYTHING????

Hey, I guess we fans are also part of the problem! ;)

[The Exchanger]

well.. i have a different opinion here..

when increasing number of foreigners this means a higher standard in the bundesliga and better chance in european competitions for the clubs.. So even if the German players in bundesliga are less than ever but they batteled their way to their first team selection with all of these foreigners.. it means that they deserve their place and they are good enough to play for the national team..

the solution is not to reduce the foreign players.. this will affect German clubs in europe..
I think the problem ur talking about isn't a problem anymore.. just look at Germany-21 team.. most of the players are first team players in their clubs.. maybe 90% of them.. There is a good structure for the future so I dont think Germany will struggle anymore specially with all these talents in the U-21 team..

[Duncan Idaho]

DFB reform. Well, is the DFB structure really the culprit of Germans NT's problems like many are saying?

Many of Klinsmann's supporters point out that he is finally tackling the deep rooted rotten infrastructure issues of the German Soccer Association. He kicked out some well known figures including Sepp Maier and other well known celebrities, the chief scout is Swiss, the fitness trainer American and we almost would have had a hockey coach as the sports director. Is all that supposed to help us to have a better nationalteam in the long run?

Didn't the current structure work just fine? We made it to the WC final 7 times and won 3 of them, within the last 30 years we always at least made it to the quarterfinals of the WC, we made it to the Euro final 5 times and won 3 of them.


That's the main argument of those who are against changes in the DFB and its field of work and that's the main reason why there have been so few changes in the DFB. Each time someone wants a major change inside the DFB, there will be someone who is pointing on the successfull tradition garnished with some soccer wisdoms like "Der Ball is rund!" or "Ein Spiel dauert 90 Minuten!" In other words, the succesfull tradition became to the major obstacle for any necessary change in the German football, and each lucky success like the last one at the WC 2002 helped to sustain the tradition and to slow the necessary reforms. Though the main philosophy (Fitness and Athletics) of the German football has already lost its advantage years ago, cause all the other nations improved in that essential part of the game. The German football has simply to learn querying itself in each facet for finding out those facets in which imporvement is necessary and possible. Other nations did that and overhauled or caught up with Germany in soccer. In a competion like soccer standing still means downfall, and Germany stood still!


I don't want to say that there is no room for some changes and improvement in the structure, but despite pissing people off, I'm still trying to figure out what Klinsmann is trying to accomplish or how all of this is supposed to help our NT.

Don't mix up short-term with mid- or long-term targets, not everything is made for short-term success like the technical director.

[A short excursus:]Sure, Klinsmanns plan did not succeed and Peters is not involved at the moment and it is questionable if he will get involved in September or October when he could get a deallocation from the german hockey federation. But why Klinsmann wanted this guy should be obvious compared to the DFB, which is one of the biggest federation in sports in the world, the german hockey federation is a mite, but they are making more out of it, they managed to be under the best hockey nations for a long time, though no hockey professional - amateur would describe it better - in Germany can live from playing hockey, but even though they are succesfull!
To get anywhere near this efficiency of the german hockey federation should be a major objective for the DFB - even if when it will take years!


Here is what I think should be the major focus point to have a great national team in the long run. PROMOTE THE YOUTH! About 12 years ago when I was playing in Germany the problem already creeped into the German leagues.We had great talent on our team, including myself. But when we were done with the youth league (A-Youth it is called) they dropped us like hot potatoes and rather spend millions of $$$ to buy players from other foreign countries. We ended up in the third or below non-pro leagues.

That's undoubtedly correct, but changing that takes years! Maybe 8, maybe 10, maybe 15 years in the end, that's hard to say but the turn-around to more and better youth in the football already had begun. The DFB is no more concerned and aware of the football potential of immigrants in Germany and his contanstly trying to lure them playing for Germany, they were not successful with Sahin, but they were with Castro and others. This may serve as a indicator besides that the U-Teams of the DFB get better and that foreign clubs are more and more interested in young german players, especially clubs from England (e.g. Neumayr, Ron Robert-Ziele, Pezzoni)

Unfortunately it s matter of time - as I pointed out earlier - to change the demographics in soccer, currently there are missing a lot of quality players in medium age in terms of soccer, that means players between 25 and 30 years. There are player missing and young players have to fill these vacant spots, e.g. Podolski, Schweinsteiger, Huth, Mertesacker, Jansen and all of them could still play in the U-21. In general The youth situation is slowly improving and the current U-Teams illustrate that, but the WC in Germany is still taking place at least 4 years too early

[poorvi]

Thats a great post Duncan Idaho. Probably one of the best pieces of analysis I have read on this forum.

[poorvi]

There is another factor, the lack of which is making the current German side struggle. That is the fear factor.

Previous German sides have always had a couple of players, who in addition to their talent, had an aura of invincibility, a streak of ruthlessness and a no nonesense look. I can go on naming people from the past squads- Rummenigge, Kohler, Brehme,Schuhmacher, Effenberg, Kahn,Ramelow,Sammer, Janker and so on. All these people had a menacing ' dont mess with me' attitude and this would surely have a psychological effect on their opponents. I remember clearly how Zahovic used to cower away from tackles in the 2001 final of the champions league, when he came face to face with Effenberg. It wasn't just the size, but the calmness of the players, in contrast to their agressive demeanor was a combination to intimidate even the strongest of opponents. Even a smaller person like Lothar Mathaus, with his look and coarse voice could get respect from opponents.
If I was a defender. I'd make sure I was not entrusted the task of tackling Effenberg or Janker.

This is lacking now. Apart from Kahn (now a sub) and Huth (but the 'look' is all he has, no talent), and Ballack to an extent, no one has that confident and threatening appearance anymore.Take Kuranyi for instance, he looks so weak, I don't think any defender will hesitate before trying to play rough with him. Podolski looks like a school boy, and is not likely to scare any one off. But atleast he has talent.

Do you guys think, that for Germany, a team which traditonaly more physical than the other, appearing tough is necessary?

[Bayerntone]

This is a funny theory. I just don't believe the look of the players has anything to do with their success in soccer. Shevchenko, Henry, Zidane, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Riquelme, Buffon, Maldini, Etoo ... do any of these guys look like a hit man?