kontrol-ball-Germany
15 Mar 2007, 08:14 PM
Given the success of the national side I find that Germany is written off on many occasions and many "football people" do not take Germany seriously. There are also undertones of other less accomplished national sides portraying they are better than Germany as if Germany would not stand a chance against them in a match.
Im gonna leave you with a few articles, please feel free to share your thoughts.
"Why Germany Won’t Win the World Cup
Mourinho’s white flag: Robert Huth
1. They’re too home-based
Most of the world’s best footballers earn their living in one of three domestic leagues: Spain’s La Liga; Italy’s Seria A; and the English Premiership. In other words, Germany’s Bundesliga is not one of them. Today you don’t expect the likes of Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund or Bayer Leverkeusen to be there in the final four of the European Champion’s League, never mind win the thing. So what’s this got to do with the World Cup?
Well, if you compare the current squads of the last tournament’s finalists, you’ll notice that pretty much of all of the Brazilian squad plays in one of those three leagues (perhaps one or two Bundesliga and Dutch Eredivisie players will make the cut). By contrast only two of the current German squad play outside of the Bundesliga — second-choice goalkeeper Jens Lehmann of Arsenal, and Chelsea clogger Robert Huth (who is like Jose Mourinho’s equivalent of the boxing coach’s towell, tossed into the game as a late substitute when he knows he’s beaten). If Coach Klinsmann has the sense to pick Liverpool’s own Didi Hamman, which currently seems unlikely, that would make three. And the only Bundesliga player attracting a major bid from the Big Leagues now is Michael Ballack, who on his day can be a midfield match winner but somehow lacks the majesty of a Lothar Matthaus (who, incidentally, at his peak was earning his wage at Italy’s Inter Milan, along with legendary striker Karl-Heinz Rummenige). Carsten Ramelow? Torsten Frings? Sebastian Deisler? Germany today simply doesn’t have the players that strike fear into their opponents. It’s a long-term trend. (More on this below.)
2. They Haven’t Been Tested in Real Competition
As hosts, they didn’t have to qualify for the tournament, so for the past four years they have been playing only friendlies, which these days are a bit of a joke. And frankly, they were fortunate to make the final last time around; they hardly looked like world beaters in Korea.
3. They Don’t Have a Serious Coach
Jurgen Klinsmann was a useful striker (although he was no Rummenige), but he’s never coached at club level. He’s taken on the German national team while continuing to live in sunny California. It’s hard to imagine him inspiring the sort of respect from the players that your typical Bundesliga authoritarian, such as a Otmar Hitzfeld or even some of the more established names of German football such as Beckenbauer, could command.
4. Yes, They’re at Home, But…
So are the Dutch. And the French. And Italians. And Poles. Hell, even the English will feel at home: Europe is very, very small, and all the European teams can expect masses of support in the stadium every time they play.
deisler
Depressive Deisler
5. Where’s the Hunger?
This is the long-term effect I was referring to above. By way of illustration, consider the fact that Sebastian Deisler spent most of last season out injured, depriving Bayern of the services of the most exciting young prospect in German football. His ailment? Depression. I have a feeling that depression, when it strikes Brazilian footballers at all, usually sets in only after they’re rich and famous and fat, and their careers are going off the boil as the tabloids pile on.
Call me essentialist, if you like, but I tend to think that there’s a certain class context to the production of soccer talent. Sure, great players can emerge from any class, but the general trend is that the combination of skill, strength, hunger and imagination that it takes to become a professional at the highest level is more prevalent among the more disenfranchised elements of society. A route out of povery, like boxing or basketball.
Watching kids start playing soccer here in the U.S. I’ve been struck by the fact that every kid brings their own ball. I’m pretty sure that when Ronaldinho was a kid in the favela, there was only ever one ball. And so when he managed to knick it off the feet of some rival, he quickly honed his abilities — the trickery, guile, exquisite ball control and the strength to ride out even the most brutal of playground tackles — to make sure he was going to keep that ball. Wait, we’re getting side tracked here.
My basic point being that Germany today is a kind of depressive middle class society, and its half century at the top of the global game may be coming to a close."
http://tonykaron.com/2006/04/05/why-germany-wont-win-the-world-cup/
Germany, you have a problem
By Gabriele Marcotti
EXACTLY FOUR MONTHS AND TWO days ago, German football seemed to have reached its highest point since the summer of 1990, when Franz Beckenbauer remarked famously that his country, already world champions, would become unstoppable after reunification with the East.
They had put on one of the best World Cups in recent history, they boasted the best football grounds in Europe (and they were always full) and Jürgen Klinsmann’s up-and-comers were in the World Cup semi-finals, having just knocked out Argentina, most people’s favourites.
It was supposed to be a new dawn. Instead, it was a false dawn. And only now is it becoming clear just how deep into the night German football has wandered.
Germany lost that semi-final, of course. Perhaps things would have been different if Klinsmann’s troops had been crowned world champions. Either way, it’s worth noting just how far the country has plummeted as a footballing power.
The Bundesliga sits fifth in the all-important Uefa country ranking, which determines the number of clubs a league can enter into the Champions League and Uefa Cup. The country ranking is based on a formula that takes into account the aggregate European results of a league over the past five seasons. Germany are perilously perched half a point ahead of Portugal and less than two points ahead of Romania. Theoretically, leagues in the Netherlands and Russia could overtake the Bundesliga this season, as well. Even if only two from the four leagues in the “chasing pack” pull ahead of Germany, the effect would be disastrous. The Bundesliga would be guaranteed only one place in the Champions League proper, plus another via the qualifying rounds. With two entrants it would be on a par with the likes of Ukraine, Bulgaria and Scotland.
Yet perhaps these results are not so surprising when one considers that in Uefa’s ranking of individual teams (also based on the past five years), Bayern Munich, the highest-ranked German side, sit in seventeenth place, behind — among others — Newcastle United, Villarreal, AS Roma and PSV Eindhoven. There are four German clubs in Uefa’s top 50; England has four in the top ten alone.
Footballing powers have ups and downs, of course, but Germany’s decline remains hard to explain. After all, this is Europe’s biggest country, boasting the biggest economy, as well as a per capita income that puts the Continent’s other large nations to shame.
It has the infrastructure and cultural conditions that ought to enable the sport to thrive: a long and glorious history, outstanding facilities at both professional and youth level and a genuine interest in the game. Indeed, in the latter category, the Germans are in a league of their own. The Bundesliga has far and away the highest average attendance in Europe, some 15 percentage points higher than the Barclays Premiership, despite the increased capacity this season at Old Trafford and the Emirates Stadium. Furthermore, its second division is also the top-ranked in Europe, some 10 per cent ahead of the Coca-Cola Championship.
It can count on fertile social conditions, as well. Germany is located at the centre of Europe and, unlike some other insular cultures one might name, it has been quick to absorb and adapt to foreign influences, particularly in football. And it has a large and diverse immigrant population that — as France showed a few years ago — can provide the manpower to create a footballing powerhouse.
Throw in the fact that Italian club football is financially moribund (not to mention its other, more serious, self-inflicted wounds) and that Le Championnat in France is seemingly unable to hang on to the talented footballers it produces and one might have thought that this would be an optimal time for Germany to challenge La Liga and the Premiership. Instead, the situation seemingly continues to degenerate.
Germans have questioned themselves long and hard, trying to find the reasons behind their footballing decline. Post-Bosman the blame was initially laid at the feet of foreigners, particularly cheap ones from impoverished Eastern neighbours. Leaving aside that Germany gleefully naturalised the better ones — Lukas Podolski, Miroslav Klose, et al — the argument proved to be flawed: England, Spain and Italy had as many, if not more, foreign imports and yet they continue to produce quality footballers.
The second theory, that German clubs are set up as “not-for-profit” social entities and, as such, cannot benefit from a stock market float or profligate owners such as Roman Abramovich or Massimo Moratti, which, in turn, means they cannot compete financially, makes somewhat more sense. And it’s true that it is stricter financial oversight in Germany that makes it more difficult for clubs to engage in “creative accounting” or run up hundreds of millions of euros of debt.
But this factor alone cannot explain the malaise. Even if German clubs cannot pay Premiership or La Liga wages, it doesn’t explain why Germany stopped producing the kind of players foreign clubs want to buy. If Germany were like France — that is, a league where teams cannot pay high wages but where they still produce good footballers — Michael Ballack, Robert Huth and Jens Lehmann would not be the only members of Klinsmann’s Word Cup squad plying their trade abroad.
The trendy explanation is that German society is simply too wealthy, fat and bloated to produce the kind of people hungry enough to become top professional footballers. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, may be trying to cut their benefits, but after 50 years of a highly unionised welfare state, the working classes — the traditional reservoir of footballing talent in every nation — have either gone soft or joined the middle class.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,27-2439160,00.html
Im gonna leave you with a few articles, please feel free to share your thoughts.
"Why Germany Won’t Win the World Cup
Mourinho’s white flag: Robert Huth
1. They’re too home-based
Most of the world’s best footballers earn their living in one of three domestic leagues: Spain’s La Liga; Italy’s Seria A; and the English Premiership. In other words, Germany’s Bundesliga is not one of them. Today you don’t expect the likes of Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund or Bayer Leverkeusen to be there in the final four of the European Champion’s League, never mind win the thing. So what’s this got to do with the World Cup?
Well, if you compare the current squads of the last tournament’s finalists, you’ll notice that pretty much of all of the Brazilian squad plays in one of those three leagues (perhaps one or two Bundesliga and Dutch Eredivisie players will make the cut). By contrast only two of the current German squad play outside of the Bundesliga — second-choice goalkeeper Jens Lehmann of Arsenal, and Chelsea clogger Robert Huth (who is like Jose Mourinho’s equivalent of the boxing coach’s towell, tossed into the game as a late substitute when he knows he’s beaten). If Coach Klinsmann has the sense to pick Liverpool’s own Didi Hamman, which currently seems unlikely, that would make three. And the only Bundesliga player attracting a major bid from the Big Leagues now is Michael Ballack, who on his day can be a midfield match winner but somehow lacks the majesty of a Lothar Matthaus (who, incidentally, at his peak was earning his wage at Italy’s Inter Milan, along with legendary striker Karl-Heinz Rummenige). Carsten Ramelow? Torsten Frings? Sebastian Deisler? Germany today simply doesn’t have the players that strike fear into their opponents. It’s a long-term trend. (More on this below.)
2. They Haven’t Been Tested in Real Competition
As hosts, they didn’t have to qualify for the tournament, so for the past four years they have been playing only friendlies, which these days are a bit of a joke. And frankly, they were fortunate to make the final last time around; they hardly looked like world beaters in Korea.
3. They Don’t Have a Serious Coach
Jurgen Klinsmann was a useful striker (although he was no Rummenige), but he’s never coached at club level. He’s taken on the German national team while continuing to live in sunny California. It’s hard to imagine him inspiring the sort of respect from the players that your typical Bundesliga authoritarian, such as a Otmar Hitzfeld or even some of the more established names of German football such as Beckenbauer, could command.
4. Yes, They’re at Home, But…
So are the Dutch. And the French. And Italians. And Poles. Hell, even the English will feel at home: Europe is very, very small, and all the European teams can expect masses of support in the stadium every time they play.
deisler
Depressive Deisler
5. Where’s the Hunger?
This is the long-term effect I was referring to above. By way of illustration, consider the fact that Sebastian Deisler spent most of last season out injured, depriving Bayern of the services of the most exciting young prospect in German football. His ailment? Depression. I have a feeling that depression, when it strikes Brazilian footballers at all, usually sets in only after they’re rich and famous and fat, and their careers are going off the boil as the tabloids pile on.
Call me essentialist, if you like, but I tend to think that there’s a certain class context to the production of soccer talent. Sure, great players can emerge from any class, but the general trend is that the combination of skill, strength, hunger and imagination that it takes to become a professional at the highest level is more prevalent among the more disenfranchised elements of society. A route out of povery, like boxing or basketball.
Watching kids start playing soccer here in the U.S. I’ve been struck by the fact that every kid brings their own ball. I’m pretty sure that when Ronaldinho was a kid in the favela, there was only ever one ball. And so when he managed to knick it off the feet of some rival, he quickly honed his abilities — the trickery, guile, exquisite ball control and the strength to ride out even the most brutal of playground tackles — to make sure he was going to keep that ball. Wait, we’re getting side tracked here.
My basic point being that Germany today is a kind of depressive middle class society, and its half century at the top of the global game may be coming to a close."
http://tonykaron.com/2006/04/05/why-germany-wont-win-the-world-cup/
Germany, you have a problem
By Gabriele Marcotti
EXACTLY FOUR MONTHS AND TWO days ago, German football seemed to have reached its highest point since the summer of 1990, when Franz Beckenbauer remarked famously that his country, already world champions, would become unstoppable after reunification with the East.
They had put on one of the best World Cups in recent history, they boasted the best football grounds in Europe (and they were always full) and Jürgen Klinsmann’s up-and-comers were in the World Cup semi-finals, having just knocked out Argentina, most people’s favourites.
It was supposed to be a new dawn. Instead, it was a false dawn. And only now is it becoming clear just how deep into the night German football has wandered.
Germany lost that semi-final, of course. Perhaps things would have been different if Klinsmann’s troops had been crowned world champions. Either way, it’s worth noting just how far the country has plummeted as a footballing power.
The Bundesliga sits fifth in the all-important Uefa country ranking, which determines the number of clubs a league can enter into the Champions League and Uefa Cup. The country ranking is based on a formula that takes into account the aggregate European results of a league over the past five seasons. Germany are perilously perched half a point ahead of Portugal and less than two points ahead of Romania. Theoretically, leagues in the Netherlands and Russia could overtake the Bundesliga this season, as well. Even if only two from the four leagues in the “chasing pack” pull ahead of Germany, the effect would be disastrous. The Bundesliga would be guaranteed only one place in the Champions League proper, plus another via the qualifying rounds. With two entrants it would be on a par with the likes of Ukraine, Bulgaria and Scotland.
Yet perhaps these results are not so surprising when one considers that in Uefa’s ranking of individual teams (also based on the past five years), Bayern Munich, the highest-ranked German side, sit in seventeenth place, behind — among others — Newcastle United, Villarreal, AS Roma and PSV Eindhoven. There are four German clubs in Uefa’s top 50; England has four in the top ten alone.
Footballing powers have ups and downs, of course, but Germany’s decline remains hard to explain. After all, this is Europe’s biggest country, boasting the biggest economy, as well as a per capita income that puts the Continent’s other large nations to shame.
It has the infrastructure and cultural conditions that ought to enable the sport to thrive: a long and glorious history, outstanding facilities at both professional and youth level and a genuine interest in the game. Indeed, in the latter category, the Germans are in a league of their own. The Bundesliga has far and away the highest average attendance in Europe, some 15 percentage points higher than the Barclays Premiership, despite the increased capacity this season at Old Trafford and the Emirates Stadium. Furthermore, its second division is also the top-ranked in Europe, some 10 per cent ahead of the Coca-Cola Championship.
It can count on fertile social conditions, as well. Germany is located at the centre of Europe and, unlike some other insular cultures one might name, it has been quick to absorb and adapt to foreign influences, particularly in football. And it has a large and diverse immigrant population that — as France showed a few years ago — can provide the manpower to create a footballing powerhouse.
Throw in the fact that Italian club football is financially moribund (not to mention its other, more serious, self-inflicted wounds) and that Le Championnat in France is seemingly unable to hang on to the talented footballers it produces and one might have thought that this would be an optimal time for Germany to challenge La Liga and the Premiership. Instead, the situation seemingly continues to degenerate.
Germans have questioned themselves long and hard, trying to find the reasons behind their footballing decline. Post-Bosman the blame was initially laid at the feet of foreigners, particularly cheap ones from impoverished Eastern neighbours. Leaving aside that Germany gleefully naturalised the better ones — Lukas Podolski, Miroslav Klose, et al — the argument proved to be flawed: England, Spain and Italy had as many, if not more, foreign imports and yet they continue to produce quality footballers.
The second theory, that German clubs are set up as “not-for-profit” social entities and, as such, cannot benefit from a stock market float or profligate owners such as Roman Abramovich or Massimo Moratti, which, in turn, means they cannot compete financially, makes somewhat more sense. And it’s true that it is stricter financial oversight in Germany that makes it more difficult for clubs to engage in “creative accounting” or run up hundreds of millions of euros of debt.
But this factor alone cannot explain the malaise. Even if German clubs cannot pay Premiership or La Liga wages, it doesn’t explain why Germany stopped producing the kind of players foreign clubs want to buy. If Germany were like France — that is, a league where teams cannot pay high wages but where they still produce good footballers — Michael Ballack, Robert Huth and Jens Lehmann would not be the only members of Klinsmann’s Word Cup squad plying their trade abroad.
The trendy explanation is that German society is simply too wealthy, fat and bloated to produce the kind of people hungry enough to become top professional footballers. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, may be trying to cut their benefits, but after 50 years of a highly unionised welfare state, the working classes — the traditional reservoir of footballing talent in every nation — have either gone soft or joined the middle class.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,27-2439160,00.html