German Youth Development System

Discussion in 'Germany' started by Attacking Minded, Oct 12, 2003.

  1. Attacking Minded

    Attacking Minded New Member

    Jun 22, 2002
    In another thread https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=76766
    soccerfreak #1 said,

    "If it´s true what youre all posting, there will be no chance for the USMNT to become a major competitor in world soccer.
    Young players shouldn´t be just judged by their strength and speed, but by their potentials and skills.
    Now it´s obvious to me, why the best american player, landon donovon decided to go to europe in the age of 16, so he wasn´t forced to go through this awfull college stuff.
    The americans should change that quickly if they want to become better in future.
    In germany we had also some problems with our youth system, cause many coaches did the same thing as the college coaches. the result is the poor performance of the german NT during the last decade, but we changed that system in ´98 and now it begins to pay of with some exelent youth players in U21 and U19."


    I think this is interesting and would like to know more.

    Would anyone on this forum care to tell us how the German system opperates today??
     
  2. PFSIKH

    PFSIKH Member

    Nov 1, 1999
    ClarkVegas
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The German clubs (ie Bayern, 1.FCK, etc) operate their own youth teams that participate in the A and B Junior Bundesliga. There are 3 A level leagues with a 14 team pro/rel system that has the top teams meet in a plyoff to determine the champion. The B level has 5 14 team pro/rel system leagues.

    I am not sure what the age cutoff is for the A and B. If you look at the link it has the standings for each league and you will recognize a lot of familiar names and some not so famaliar names.


    http://www.kicker.de/content/ergebnisdienst/jun_ligen.asp?folder=24200
     
  3. olafgb

    olafgb New Member

    Jun 6, 2001
    Germany
    The Youth Development Programme was inaugurated not long ago by the German FA (ironically by FA Boss Meyer-Vorfelder, who already “cared” for Stuttgart’s youth programme by almost ruining a healthy club…). It’s nonsense that any of the current players – even in the U19 – profited from that. The programme simply consists of investing lots of money (10 M per year) into many local training bases, where talents have the opportunity to be trained by German FA Coaches about twice a week. The reason why we are having at least some talents right now, is that some clubs realised the problem a few years ago and started to invest money for their youth teams.

    The difference has nothing to do with the system, quite in contrast. The college system in the US is based on experience and works perfectly well in other sports. It would be as successful with soccer if they had a better fundament to build on. All what it takes is patience as you first need a generation of good players to retire, who then are willing to work with the youth. The German system is very idealistic, but as every idealism it faces the limits in the clash with reality. Pro clubs are forced to have youth and reserve teams, which principally is good as they got money to hire good coaches, they provide with good training opportunities and care for the talents getting a perfect frame to develop.

    The problem in Germany is the transition from youth to pro level: naturally the top clubs have more money to invest, they sign the players long termed [what’s natural, they paid for the development – you don’t do this without a purpose], but a) the players hardly have a chance to make their pro team and b) the good teams extend their gap to the other clubs as they keep the talents away from pro level by that. It would be much more effective for the league and the sports if the clubs were forced to pay sums for the youth according to their budget and educate the talents in special teams and leagues independent of any club. After all, that’s the rough thought behind the US drafts, which were inaugurated when they realised the problem we’re having in Germany right now.
     
  4. soccerfreak #1

    soccerfreak #1 New Member

    Oct 6, 2003
    Cologne
    I still think that the college system is a failure, because of some rules i know from college basketball.
    As far as I know college players are only allowed to practice a certain time per week, so they have a huge disadvantage over european players, who are playing under professional conditions from the age of 18 or 19 and don´t have to care about school.
    The problem with the transition is hopefully getting better, since top clubs let there best youth players go to scond or first league clubs on loan( like usual in Italy)

    The fact that the present success of german youth teams(second at U19EM) is mainly based on the big clubs youth programs is very true.
    It´s obvious that those clubs who dominated the junior team titles in the last 6 years, dortmund, bayern and stuttgart are now the teams with the most promising talents in germany.

    Bayern, Stuttgart and Dortmund B-teams are among the top teams in the third league, though some of their top prospects are on loan with other clubs, like Bayern´s Phillip Lahm at Stuttgart or Dortmund´s Emanuell Krontiris at Aachen(second league), or are already playing for the A team.

    But i also still think that some developments are linked with the new rules, like the one that you must have a youth-soccer-internal(don´t know the real word) if you want to play first league, cause that would give an explanation on, why a club like hertha bsc have an increasing number of youth national players, or a club like second league side Mainz, has their B-team in third league and also got some youth natoinal players(Matthias Abel, Mimoun Azouagh [sp?]).
     

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