Decadal overview of the German National team

In this thread, we will observe the results of the NT every decade, and draw conclusions based on the performances in that decade and between decades. The title, I admit is quite brusque, but I couldn't come up with something more descriptive that was kind to the ears. This decade is Jan 1 2010 - Dec 31 2019.
The following decades are a part of this thread:
The Naught-ies Jan 1 2000 - Dec 31 2009
The Nineties Jan 1 1990 - Dec 31 1999
The Eighties Jan 1 1980 - Dec 31 1989
The Seventies Jan 1 1970 - Dec 31 1979
The Sixties Jan 1 1960 - Dec 31 1969
The Fifties Jan 1 1950 - Dec 31 1959

Data for games from the 50s and the 60s is not readily available and not in much detail.

What is done here, is that the winning percentages are computed for each decade. This wining percentage is then compared with different parameters, to see in which case the NT has performed the best. The parameters used are:

1) Home/Away games: How the team has fared in home and away games. Is there any stark difference in the performance at home and away?

2) Scoring first/ Conceding first : All the games ( apart from the goal less draws) have been broken down as those where Germany scored first and conceded first. That way, a good estimate of the team's ability to come back and how likely they are to win when going ahead can be observed. What should be noted here is that only the first goal is counted. F.e In a Germany vs England game, if Germany trail 1-0 then lead 2-1, then trail 3-2 to finally win 4-3, the game is counted only once and Germany have trailed in it. Ideally it should be counted as a game in which Germany trailed twice and took the lead twice. But that not only complicates the computation but makes the whole exercise very academic and not very football relevant.

3) Match Type: The matches have been broken up into friendlies, qualifiers and tournament matches. Tournament matches include confederation cup and other mini tournaments that the NT may have been a part of. Games that are won in extra time/ golden goal/silver goal/penalties are considered draws.

4) Cards: Propensity of the team to collect bookings. Results after bookings ( not that relevant) etc. I have collated the data because it was readily available. If anyone wishes to use it for whatever reasons ( highly unlikely), its all there.

 

The Naught-ies

Here is the file with all the raw data.

Jan 1 2000 - Dec 31 2009

Achievements:
No winners medals in this decade
EC00: Group stage humiliation
WC 02: Runners up
EC04: Group stage exit
Confederations Cup: 3rd place
WC 06: 3rd place
EC 08: Runners up

The record


A massive 140 games were played in this decade. With an overall win % of 59%.

1) As expected, the home performances have been visibly better than the performance of the team away. The win% are ~ 67% and ~51% roughly. The win% at home is really impressive, IMO.

2) Germany have scored first in ~62% of the games they scored first. That is 87 games in which they scored first. From these, they have won a whopping ~86% of the games and lost just 2 games ( 2.2%) of the games. Basically, its as good as saying that Germany have never lost when they went ahead. Of the two games, the game against England in Munich 2001 is one that I remember. Can't recollect which was the other one.

Germany has fallen behind in ~ 34% of the games played. And has managed to not lose ~45% of those games. But of the games that Germany fell behind, they have won only 17%. Surely, in this decade, Germany were no comeback kings.

3) Match type: Germany's performance in friendly games has been more or less at par with her/his ( this always confuses me) overall performance. However, in tournaments in the decade, Germany has been (marginally) weaker than her regular performance, clearly exposing the MYTH that Germany is a tournament team. Not in this decade. If anything, Germany's is a massive qualifiers team, where the win % is an impressive 66%. Only 2 games lost in a decade. Against England at home (WCQ 2002) and against Czech at home (ECQ 2008). Both at Munich.

4) Card situation: German players have been booked in 90 out of a 140 games (yellow cards) and sent off in 8 games. Expectedly, the proportion is higher in qualifiers and tournament games. Surprsingly, Germany has a win% of 87.5% in the games in which a red card has been show for his/her players.

Germany averaged 1.25 yellow cards/ game in this decade.

Please add in your suggestions and comments.

 

The Nineties

This file has all the games.

Jan 1 1990 - Dec 31 1999

Achievements:
WC 90 : Winners
EC 92: Runners up
Tournament with Brazil, England and USA: Winners
WC 94: Quarters
EC96: Winners
WC98: Quarters
Confederations Cup: Group stage humiliation

The record


129 games were played in this decade, with a win% of ~64%

1) Home win% close to 70% which is very impressive no matter how you look at it. What stands out in this case is that the home games played in this decade are only ~32% of the total games played. The record away is also impressive at ~61% win%.

2) Germany have scored first in 61% of the games played and have won ~89% of the games in which he/she/it took the lead. Of the games in which Germany conceded first, 37.5% were lost. A come back victory was achieved in 27.5% of the games played. I don't know if this can categorize them as comeback kings, but its better than the performance in the 2000s.

3) In this decade too, Germany has significantly performed better in qualifiers. The tournament performance is below the overall German performance. That is partly due to the Confederation Cup 1999 debacle. If that is taken aside, the figures improve, but Germany hasn't dominated tournaments as he has dominated qualifiers.

4) German players have been yellow carded in ~66% of the games played. Red cards were handed out in ~5% of the games. In this decade, the average yellow card/ game ratio was 1.36

 

Comparison between 2000s and the 1990s

Many stark differences between the NT of the 90s and the 2000s

1) The overall win% is greater in the 90s. That is mainly because of Germany winning more away games ( which is the hall mark of a strong side) in the 90s as against the 2000s.

2) The win% of games in which the NT has conceded first is also better in the 90s than in the 80s, while the % of games in which Germany has conceded first has remained more or less the same.

3) In the 2000s: Goals scored/game = 2.23 , goals conceded/ game = 1.03
In the 1990s: Goals scored/game = 1.77, goals conceded/game = 0.82

In short, Germany was more successful in the 90s scoring ( and conceding) lesser goals than in 2000s. An extreme extrapolation: A strong defense is more likely to win you games/tournaments than a strong offense.

4) When it comes to the card situation, Germany has been consistent across the two decades.

Will add information for the other decades later.

 

The Eighties

Here's the file with the info on the games played in the 80s.

Jan 1 1980 - Dec 31 1989

Achievements:
EC80: WInners
WC82: Runners up
EC84: Group stage exit
WC86: Runners up
4 nations cup in Berlin: 3rd place
EC88: Semifinalists

The record


Average goals/game = 1.85
Average goals conceded/game = 0.92
The 80s have been (marginally) more prolific than the 90s in this regard. More goals scored and a weaker (slightly) defense. One possible reason is that Germany had better defenders in the 90s than in the 80s and the starting to use two DMs which was an unknown till then. Just hypothesizing.

1) The win % in the 80s is the lowest of the ones seen so far, at a ~ 56%. The games played are 110. Like the later decades, a disproportionate number of games are played away from home. And like the later decades, the home performance heavily outshines the away performance.

2) 60% of the games have seen Germany score first. Of these, Germany won ~82% of the games. Germany fell behind in ~ 31% of the games and managed to salvage/not lose 47% of the games in which Germany conceded first.

Another observation here is that ~9% of the games in this decade were goal less draws. A larger number than in the latter two decades. In the 2000s, f.e the percentage of goal less draws was just ~4.3%. As a neutral, the team in the 2000s was much more fun to watch.

3) The general performance in friendlies and in tournaments was much below par. 80s saw the worst German tournament performance. As usual ,performances in the qualifiers lifted the general performance to some respectable levels.

4) Surprisingly, only 30 yellows and 2 reds were handed out during the 80s. I am guessing that the reason being that cards were shown only during tournaments in these days. Is that the case, or does any one know/ have a better explanation?

Major myth buster: Germany wasn't really a super power in the 80s. The performance in the 90s was much more stellar. Most of the times, we tend to over rate the German teams of the 80s and under play the teams of the 90s. A big reason for this is the 2 WC runners up spot in the 80s and the debacle from 1998-1999 in the next decade. These two WCs (82 and 86) have had lots of games where Germany was indeed poor f.e Algeria, Austria, Denmark, Uruguay and even against Mexico.That makes our overview slightly erroneous. At least thats what the numbers indicate.

After the gloomy 80s, next up, the dazzling 70s.

 

Came as a surprise to me too. I was also under the general impression that goals/game have gone down over the years. So have goals conceded. Apparently Germany has reversed the general trend. Can't think of any other nation where that may be the case. Since we are taking this on a decade by decade basis, as against a year by year, it means that the change is in the attitude towards the game. Factors like strength of opposition, style of opposition, location etc cancel out the longer the period of time you take.

True. The thing is that, I haven't tracked the data properly. What I should have done, is counted the number of reds the opposing teams received too. It may well be that in many of the case you mentioned, the opposing team may also be playing with a player down. Or maybe Germany was red carded towards the end of the game, after already scoring and being in the lead and had to defend the remainder of the time etc.

For the 70s, 60s and 50s, I will not track data for the cards as its difficult to get and doesn't offer many insights. Also, I think the concepts of cards was introduced somewhere in the late 70s, meaning that it isn't applicable to the entire decade.

 

Thanks Gregoriak, for the red card figures. I will incorporate these into the sheets for 70s, 60s and 50s. I wanted to know, if these red cards are direct reds or are they 2 yellows. The way I have classified cards in this analysis is that, 2 yellow cards are counted as 1 yellow and 1 red for the team. So a break up of those red cards would be really appreciated.

@ Arthur: Thanks for the vote of confidence

I agree that the borders are arbitrary. The decades are based on the general view we (or at least I) take on football teams. The taxonomy here is more convenience/ popular view of football eras based than on any scientific parameter.
The reason for not going ahead with a 4 year window is that very limited sample size to draw any conclusions from. Also, across decades, we have the same number of ECs + WCs.

Edit: You've said multiples of 4 and not 4 itself. Well using 8 or 12 year windows is not going to be aesthetic . An analysis on German football doesn't have to be like the German jersey.

Your idea of a 10 year sliding window is brilliant. I could easily get overall win% for these 10 year periods and will also add a post on that after the posts on the 70s, 60s and 50s. But getting the different data cuts on each of these periods of 10 years will drive me mad.

 

I found Arthur's idea of taking sliding 10 year windows very interesting. Acting on that hint, is a sliding decade table, showing the decade vs games played, win% , goals conceded and goals scored.

Basically, the same exercise that was done earlier ( decade wise compilation) was carried out here too. Just that I started off with the 50-59 decade. Then examined the 51-60 decade, then the 52-61 decade till the 2000-2009 decade.

Here is the file with the data.

Here are the findings:


It comes as no surprise, that the decades from 1963-72 to 1974-1983 were the ones with the highest (peak) win%. So, without the loss of generalization, we can conclude that broadly, 63-83 was the golden period of German football, with 65-74 as its best decade.

Just taking the win% into consideration, here is the decade vs win% represented graphically:


@ Gregoriak, you can get goal scored averages for the 50-59, 60-69 and 70-79 decades from the table posted above.

 

Continuing the same thing for Decades vs Goals scored/game average



The graph indicates that 58-67 decade and the decades around it were the period when Germany scored prolifically. The current decade, 2000-2009 is almost equal to those decades, which comes as a shock to me.