quote:

In the wake of Germany's World Cup triumph, much was made of the fact this success had been a dozen years in the making - or, more precisely, the planning.

Many observers pointed out it was the result of a footballing revolution that began around the turn of the century and has led to an almost complete overhaul of the German game.

Could we, many non-Germans asked themselves, somehow copy the structure upon which this revolution was based? (The implicit understanding, of course, is that in Germany even revolutions are well-structured and carried out with discipline and order.)

You can understand why it's a tempting thought. Many numbers and figures were bandied about to explain how the lumbering, ageing, defensive Germans of the 1980s and 1990s had miraculously morphed into the skilled, young, attacking Germans of the past few years. Somehow it sounded as if all you had to do was pour money into one end and wait until Mesut Özil and Mario Götze drop out at the other.

The bad news is it isn't this simple.

This is really good article which showcases Germany's football revolution, and highlights the extreme difficulty in emulating it. For example, Germany has built 52 centers of excellence which trains coaches and players and initially invested 48 million Euros annually, which is now supposedly doubled. That means they are spending 134 million dollars a year on training their coaches and youth. That is an insane number, especially over a decade and a half. I don't see how the U.S., or any other country for that matter, could duplicate that, or even compete with it on the same level.

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Posted by S

RIP Wayde

Member since Jan 2007

155600 posts

Posted on 8/3/14 at 4:17 pm to crazy4lsu

quote:
The second reason why the clubs eventually came around to the cause of the national team has to do with money – paradoxically, a lack of it. In late 2001, German football was plunged into a major financial crisis when the Bundesliga's major television partner ran out of money (the rough equivalent of BSkyB going bust, without BT being there to pick up the slack).
Suddenly all teams except Bayern were more or less forced to go with young talents, because they could no longer compete with clubs from England, Spain or Italy in the transfer market.
A good example is Borussia Dortmund. For a few years, BVB has been synonymous with the German youth movement, but things used to be very different.
Even though Dortmund had a successful youth setup (the club won the German Under-19 title for five years running between 1994 and 1998), hardly any youngster broke into the first team.
The club policy was very simply to buy big in order to be competitive in Europe. In fact, Dortmund were so uninterested in talent development that they came close to being thrown out of the Bundesliga.
This leads us to the third, and by far most important, reason why the German clubs eventually changed their ways: they were forced to do so.

interesting

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