O/T the German Way

Germany has endured a series of set-backs in recent decades that have incited soul-searching within their football ranks
They include the 1998 World Cup quarter-final defeat by Croatia, and going out in the group stage of the 2000 and 2004 European Championships
But there is no one Eureka moment that was the catalyst for their changes
Jurgen Klinsmann and Joachim Low led a grass roots football-up reform
But were expected to deliver results in big tournaments along the way
Since 1998, Germany have reached two World Cup finals, two World Cup semi-finals, a Euros final and a Euros semi-final
Roy Hodgson was kept on as England manager for two more years after England failed to reach the knockout phase at Brazil 2014
Germany are favourites to beat Argentina in Sunday's World Cup final


It was in 1998 that a World Cup quarter-final defeat by Croatia began a round of soul-searching in German football.
No, scratch that. It was in 2000, after being eliminated at the group stage in the European Championship; or maybe it was four years later, when the same thing happened.
That was when Jurgen Klinsmann and Joachim Low implemented the reform of German football, from the roots up.
Yes, but what about 2009 when the Under 21 team won the European Championship? Surely, that was the key to it all?
So, how about none of it, or all of it, but in evolutionary stages? How about instead of looking for one Eureka moment that transformed German football - a flash of genius, a bright idea to be copied by England from the wilderness - we acknowledge that what sets them apart is that they are in a constant state of self-evaluation, while never allowing the free pass of treating a World Cup as a dry run.

For in the 16 years from 1998 to here, while German football has searched for its way forward, the Nationalmannschaft has also reached two World Cup finals (2002 and 2014), two World Cup semi-finals (2006 and 2010), a European Championship final (2008) and a European Championship semi-final (2012).
England, who preciously imagine themselves to be in the same rebuilding stage as Germany once were, have meanwhile dumbed down expectations to a level that just qualifying is considered an achievement.
Alex Horne, the Football Association general secretary, said Roy Hodgson had done enough to justify two more years by simply getting to Brazil. That would never happen in Germany.
As for Greg Dyke’s wish for England to be judged in 2022 in Qatar - nine years away when he said it - there must have been guffaws in the fancy home of the German federation.
Why are Germany successful? Because they expect to be successful, they demand success - because their ambition is huge.
If there is a problem it is addressed, but never at the expense of a major tournament. Klinsmann and Low revitalised the game in Germany, but they did not do so for the benefit of some distant point a decade away.

When they began tackling the problems in the German game, issues of identity, style and youth development, they did so with a home World Cup that was two years off in mind. There was, obviously, a longer game involving the identification and production of young talent that has come to fruition, spectacularly, at this World Cup - but Klinsmann’s aims were as much short-term, because he knew his employers, and the country, would not accept that a tournament could be thrown away as a planning exercise.
‘I was always looking long-term but I knew we would be measured by our success at the 2006 World Cup,’ Klinsmann said. ‘I was basically doubted for the two years I was coach.
‘We lost 4-1 to Italy in a friendly game three months before the tournament and everybody wanted my blood. We had another game three weeks later against the United States, which we won 4-1, and that victory saved my job.
‘The federation had been ready to make a change. They wanted the conservative approach again, not the revolution. But I kept being positive, explaining this was how I wanted us to play. I did not know if we would master it in time for the 2006 World Cup but we would give it a shot.
‘We had the players for four weeks before the tournament and were able to get our thoughts across. They agreed to train the way we wanted them to, and to do extra work. Soon they started to believe in the system.’
So, just to recap: the Germans were prepared to abandon reform because they feared not doing well in a World Cup - and Germany has a different concept of doing well, too, when you consider one of the bouts of introspection was caused by only reaching the quarter-finals.
Might this also explain why they are such serial achievers? Imagine if England’s recent World Cup record read final, semi-final, semi-final, final. Would revolution have been in the air? The FA is an organisation that introduced its own awards ceremony on the back of getting out of the group at the European Championship in 2012.
Klinsmann’s blueprint involved a very attack-minded style of play, moving the ball from front to back as fast as possible, but on the floor. He talked of giving the national team an identity: dynamic football. Has that been the way Germany have played here?
The 7-1 scoreline against Brazil would suggest so, but that isn’t the whole tale. Were Germany dynamic against France in the quarter-final? No, they played a slower, possession-based game, and won from a set-piece goal. Indeed, Germany have scored more goals from set-pieces than any other team at the World Cup, five by the time Thomas Muller volleyed in the first against Brazil on Tuesday. How so? Enter Herr Flick.

Hans-Dieter Flick has been assistant coach to Low since he succeeded Klinsmann in 2006. For several years now, he has been bemoaning the quality of Germany’s set-piece play.
Low did not have the issue high on his agenda. The pair used to have bets about whether the team could even score from a corner, a good-quality bottle of red wine to the winner. Then the head scout Urs Siegenthaler returned from the 2013 Confederations Cup in Brazil with the news that set-piece play was going to be absolutely vital at the World Cup in 2014.
If the conditions were tiring it wouldn’t be possible for Germany to play their normal, high-tempo way in every match. They would have, at times, to play slower, possession football and use the breaks in play to their best advantage.
This was what Flick had been waiting to hear. He asked Low for extra sessions geared to set-piece work. Low, moaning and sceptical but trusting of his lieutenant, agreed. One imagines Flick has quite an impressive collection of Rotwein now.
The second goal in the 4-0 win against Portugal, the 2-2 equaliser against Ghana, the only goals of the games against the United States and France, and the opener against Brazil. Not a bad run for a team that cannot score from set-pieces.

Low has also reset the balance between attack and defence, particularly now the brilliant Philipp Lahm has been restored to his full-back role.
Using goalkeeper Manuel Neuer as a glorified sweeper is another innovation that underlines the intellectual ambition of German football. Having as good as invented the role through Franz Beckenbauer in the first place, Germany now drive through the next evolutionary step.
And yes, there are also landmarks in the development of this team - Klinsmann’s 2006 side is one, and the 2009 Under 21 champions that his youth development revolution helped forge are another.
Against Brazil, the starting line-up only included two players - Muller and Toni Kroos - who were not either members of the squad in 2006 or 2009. Yet innovation and expectation is every bit as important.
In 1972, West Germany came to Wembley to play England in a European Nations Cup quarter-final. At that time, both countries had won a single World Cup. Indeed, Germany had only recorded their first win over England in 1968, in a friendly.
That night, though, England were played off the park. The match is remembered for a stunning performance by Gunter Netzer, but that wasn’t the half of it.
Horst-Dieter Hottges and Paul Breitner, the full backs, kept switching flanks. English football had never seen anything like it. Even now, it would be considered revolutionary.
‘They seem to have stood still,’ was coach Helmut Schon’s damning verdict on England.
And that is the essence of German success. It is not in one movement, one big idea: it is that they never stand still, they always expect, and they never throw a tournament away.
Final, semi-final, semi-final, final: and that, remember, was in the rebuilding stage.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/wo...Germany-team-bred-success-unlike-England.html


Excellent article as always from Martin Samuel.

 

With respect to England, some of it makes sense but not all.

I don't get the point about aiming for Qatar being too far in the future, and Germany's success being down to always wanting to win in the present. It's only in the last few years we've started lowering expectations. In the noughties we 'expected' to win every tournament and in fairness, we had the team to do it then but just never got a bit of luck in the shootouts or whatever. There's obviously a bit more to it than just expectations.

When we had our 'golden generation' we still never got to a semi, a lot of that was down to luck but still, not we're in a rebuilding sort of phase and doing even worse in the last 3 tournaments the overall record looks ****. But we are in a state of starting again with the team really. The settled team of the noughties is long gone and we're trying to fit in the new young players and find where best to play them.

But putting all this to one side, what's Germany's population compared to England? Can we really expect to be as good as them all the time?

 

Woy out!

 

Populations a poor excuse.
Holland,Denmark and Greece have all won the Euros in the last 26 years

 

I think you need to face the fact that England's national team is piss-poor compared to all the other footballing giants around the world.

 

It's not an excuse, population should surely affect expectations. 53m people in England to 80m in Germany. Ignoring that we only play the English ones whereas you only have to have visited Europe once to play for Germany, we still have to produce almost twice as many players per head than they do to compete with them.

 

Argentina 41m, France 67m, Italy £61m and Spain £47m all have similar populations to England.

Personally I'd like to see school boy football played in summer. Also reduce the amount games and have more 5 a side competitions.

 

Two of those are actually bigger than England and only Spain and Italy have really been any more successful over the last few years.

 

population has nothing to do with it
nor is it about investment in kids
from what i see , its down to hanging onto an English identity , a way England play and it enforces what type of player gets picked for England
and what type of player is bred through the system .

Whenever, and it is in the rarest of moments an English player arrives on the scene with flair and a bit of football craft
It is seen as a freak event (and it is) but the debate is all about how its fit into the English way
The "free role" is a great way to drop a gifted player into a side washing their hands of figuring out a way to play with talent - rather than build around it and encourage it .

Now as we havn't had a lot of English talent on the scene that can be considered to have ball craft and artistry the examples are mostly with Gazza Keegan & LeTiss in mind .

Scotland despite its size have produced as much if not more exceptional talent but nothing since Dalglish , Gemmill and if im brave Strachan .

 

England are their own worst enemies when it comes to producing new English talent due to the fact that only about 25% of the EPL are English. Until such time England starts to promote it's youth instead of bringing out the cheque book and buying Internationals, nothing will change,and England will fall in the world rankings instead of going up.

 

The Premier League control English football ( ie foreigners )
The FA are but mere bystanders and cannot influence anything to a great enough extent
How does anyone expect England to do well with this situation that won't change anytime soon.
We can moan has much as we want but it won't ever change.
Premier league TV money 1 v England team 0 FT

 

That is an absolutely stupid thing to say. Apart from being completely wrong its stupid anarl.

whats the population of Costa Rica?

 

Or Uruguay

 

cosfa rica is about 5m

uruguay around 4m

 

If that is the case why aren't China and India major forces in football?

 

Raheem Sterling wasn't born in England. Neither were Terry Butcher or John Barnes.

The link shows a more relevant reason, although 4 years old it still applies. Spain at the time employed nearly as many qualified coaches, 2,500, in schools as we had for the whole country.

 

England are on a downward spiral in terms of achievement in tournaments and I can't see that being reversed anytime soon. We qualify for a tournament and we are dancing around as if we've won the thing! A poor performance for the Germans is reaching the quarter finals of a tournament - England think that is a great success. I can't envisage the Germans ever being where we are in world football terms - although I would just love to see them have a poor generation of footballers at least once in my life time!

 

England have a larger population than 10 of the final 16 teams, 6 of the final 8, 2 of the final 4 and 1 of the final 2. So yea its all about the population.

Brazil 202
Chile 17
Columbia 46
Uruguay 4
France 66
Nigeria 169
Germany 80
Algeria 39
Netherlands 16
Mexico 120
Costa Rica 5
Greece 11
Argentina 43
Switzerland 8
Belgium 10
United States 319

 

Now i see, in your first and second paragraph you say we never got the luck. So it's not the manager, the players, the tactics its just bad luck. Well i hope it changes soon.

 

Yeah, we've had bad luck for 48 years according to PLT.