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grefstad

Englands failure in championships and why Germany succeeds

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Here is some thoughts on why Germany "always" succeed in international championships, and England don''t:

Germany was at a low when they lost to Portugal 0-3, I think in 2000. The losing team had a very high average age, close to 31, I think.

The German FA decided they needed to restructure their league, and put their money into youngsters.

They brought in good coaches, and set up an extensive system in all of Germany to discover talents at a young age. All coaches needed a minimum of UEFA coach licence B.

In 2002-2003, all Bundesliga-clubs had to create their own football academies. Grass pitches, artificial grass, all of them with excellent flowlights, youth setups with teams from U12 to U23 were part of the setup, and all the Bundesliga teams had to follow this if they were to get a licence.

The German FA also Tdecided to ditch the typical "machine-football", and a new emphasis on technical and tactical play was introduced.

The new philosofy was to be incorporated in all of Germany''s clubs, so the entire country developed in more or same the same direction in terms of footballing development.

So-called DFB Support Bases were introduced to work alongside the academies, to avoid losing talents not already inrolled in the clubs. 120 sites opened in 2002, increased to 360 in 2003.

Every Support Base was attached to 40-60 local clubs, to ensure the best players in ages 11-14 were picked up, and got proper coaching (from UEFA B-licenced coaches).

With such an expensive netowrk of Support Bases, the taleent scouting was made easier, and in controlled forms, making it easier for the clubs and the system to discover new talents at an early age.

As a further enhancement, the Regional Centres were opened, where the most promisin players discovered in the Support Bases were sent. 29 Regional Centres in the entire cokuntry were buildt for this purpose. Theior priorities were youngsters in the ages 12-15.

Specialists were brought in, in these centres. Sports psycologists, physical coaces, doctors, experts in nutrition, physiotherapists, etc.

Schools received a support sum of up to 30000 EUR to give talented footballers a chance to spend 1 year more on their obligatory education, to give them the opportunity to travel to national training sessions etc. The money was to be used to provide the talents with extra school tutition when needed.

In Germany, they put in huge resources in eductating coaches, and I got some numbers for you to show the difference between Germany and England in this matter:

In March 2013, there were in Germany 28 400 coaches with UEFA B-license, 5500 with UEFA A-license, and 1070 with UEFA Pro-license.

In England at the same time: 1759 coaches with B-licence, 895 with A-license and 115 with Pro-license.

Looking at the numbers, we understand that the divide between England, the cradle of football, and Germany, will only widen in the years to come.

Also, in Germany, the clubs are normally owned by the supporters. Not a wealthy owner.

The rule is "50 + 1", meaning the fans are always in control of at least half of the club shares.

Such a system is very good, as we all know, it is never a more pleasing moment for a supporter than to see the club''s homegrown players succeed.

Also, this system makes hostile takeovers virtually impossible, and German clubs are therefore not interesting as a playground for wealthy Russians, Arabs and what have you.

The absence of foreign investors will naturally trigger more emphasis on producing local talents.

The number of German players in Bundesliga were in 2013 269 from 496 players (54%).

In Premier League, the number of English players is only 31%.

And to all you keyboard warriors with nothing else to contribute with other than useless one-liners...stay away from this thread.

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Its all very impressive and good for them.   It couldn''t work in this country though as we have already sold out to big money in so many ways.   Culturally it wouldn''t work either because of the different characteristics of this country.   Germany has its own history and national characteristics which help it to create structures that work. Having got the evil out of the way after WW2, the characteristics of  desire of quality combined with discipline are still prevalent in the German psyche - and that can and does work for good, as much as it can work for bad as it did many years ago. 

This country we are still more relaxed about things - have big ideas, yes, but rarely follow them through effectively. I would love it if someone like the FA could take control and create a similar thing to Germany, but realistically it isn''t going to happen - too many people with too many fingers in too many pies - and what they do try is always too little and too late.

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It would be unrealistic to expect something of this scale to be implemented in England. BUT.....the general principles and with a structure on a smaller scale, but much larger than is in place now certainly could be. That said, I don''t know what the current plans of the English FA are?

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I think that is a very good summary. I would just add that my inside track is that for what ever reason and for better or worse Germany is a more community based and less individualistic based society. Generally they are more into their clubs and community based activity. Germans are more likely to take the time and effort to become a coach then dare I say it sit on a message board criticising others rather than doing something themselves to improve the situation. There is a fundamental cultural difference in attitudes and therefore I agree with Gary Neville that it will be very difficult to replicate their success.

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It is also interesting to compare the line-ups of the 2009 U21 Euro final between Germany and England

 

In that game Neuer, Hummels, Howedes, Boateng, Khedira and Ozil played and contributed to Germany smashing England 4-0. The England team had Craine, Richards, Gibbs, Noble, Milner, Johnson, Walcott and others - there is a sharp contrast in the fact the German team were able to step-up to full international football and go on to form key parts of some of the largest teams in the World. The England players went on to play for midtable teams, or be bit part players for larger clubs.

 

There are not only issues in developing youth players in England, but also helping them progress beyond ''talented youngster''.

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My understanding, from all the noises coming out of the FA over the last few years, Mark, is that the FA would like to go down the same road as the Germans have done for a long time, and other countries have also done more recently, but things as basic as funding and determination to see it through will always be a problem. All the opinion seems to be that the St Georges Park complex is impressive, and a step in the right direction, but it is the tip of the iceberg.I''m afraid that the UK record in national projects is not terribly impressive. People point to the London Olympics, but you only need to look at infrastructure capital projects like keeping the roads up to date, building the sort of high speed rail network that is commonplace in France, Germany, and Spain and providing the sort of additional London Airport capacity that is there in Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, to see how it inevitably gets bogged down by dithering, rows over money  and lack of clarity of thought. I fear that there will be a lot of nice sounding words, a few promises at General election time, and plenty of soundbite politics concerning  developing the FA coaching project, but in 12 years time we''ll be on here wringing our hands in the wake of yet another underwhelming effort from the 3 Lions lads in the 2026 World Cup.

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Germany has got a very good system for registering and following up on players that have at one time or another been involved in the international setup, at every level. Therefore they got a much bigger number of youth internationals managing to make the grade to full internationals.

This is more rare in other nations, not only in England.

Now, your comments about the German psyche, compared to the English way of life is perhaps a valid one.

But England have tried, and the academy grade A stuff is not far from the acadamies in Germany. The difference though is a holehearted plan, which is agreed upon in the entire league structure, i.e all clubs with a license.

Due to the influx of foreign owners in English football, this is going to be much more difficult to do in England than in, say, Germany.

And why do you think foreign owners come to England to "waste" their money on football clubs that "never" manage to make profits? Is it because they have such a profound love of the game? Want to "give something back to the society"?

No, I believe it is due to tax reasons. I believe it is a genuine method of laundering money.

Could also be a method of avoiding tax in a profitable companty in Country A, by moving money to a daughet company in Country B (England) which is not going well, and in such a way you have moved a taxable profit in Country A into a company with a loss in England, thus paying no tax at all.

So, assuming my (crazy) theory holds...if England has become the playground of Arabs and Russians looking to shave of some taxes, then it is going to be difficult to restructure English football. Infact, near impossible.

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Forgot to mention that Germany had this massive overhaul of their coaching system etc. but they were building from a much stronger base - they have been in the semi-finals at least in the last 4 World Cups and last 2 Euro Championships. Let''s not start thinking that a root and branch review will drag England up to Germany - Germany have acheived more in International football in the last 4 years than England have ever achieved.

 

The FA have wanted to put new systems in place for quite a while, but have been hamstrung by a lack of funds due to the massive overspend on both Wembley and St George''s Park. These have now pretty much been paid off and there is an intensive coach recruitment program currently ongoing. The main difference the FA have compared to the DFB though is the relationship with the top leauge''s in their respective countries. The FA have to battle with the Premier League to help the national team, the DFB and the Bundesliga are working together to help the German National Team..

 

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Instead of emulating Germany we should go for Italy and just call up loads of random south americans and pretend they are English, or appoint a fascist leader and threaten refs and their familes to win a couple of world cups, or be like Spain and just systematically pump our players full of performance enhancing drugs.Those options seem easier than the German route.

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[quote user="Jimmy Smith"]At least we''d beat them at Rugby![/quote]Maybe......Actually that is a serious point. A friend who used to be involved in sporting medicine years ago did suggest that perhaps in Britain we try to get involved in too many sports at professional level. As you say, the Germans and the Spanish don''t bother with rugby/cricket etc . Football is very much an also ran sport in places like New Zealand, Australia, USA and S Africa. I suppose France is the only other country where Rugby and Football are both played to a very high level.Could it not be argued that we are jack of all trades, masters of none.?

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Has anyone looked at the size and population of Germany since unification.

Then compare with England (not UK)

There is a lot more to choose from.

Even the working day is different...start early am and finish earlier in the day, much longer useful leisure time to partake in activities.

Look at the number of English players (not GB players)

Look at the number of English managers inhabiting the top two English leagues.

There is no interest by the owners or managers in developing English talent when they can pick and choose from a world wide market.

(money talks the loudest of all)

Even the academies (ours included) are recruiting the talented kids from anywhere they can get them.

So you have a poisoned mix of culture, attitude and huge sums of money in the wrong hands.

The FA have NO CHANCE even if they wanted to change the status quo.

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Germany deserved it but here''s where I think our problems lie, sorry if they''ve been mentioned before.

- Lallana''s £25m price tag, Andy Carroll''s £35m & £17m price tags, Jordan Henderson''s £20m price tag etc etc etc represent a big problem for English football. English players are sold well above their actual value. Sanchez cost Arsenal £28m, Lallana cost Liverpool £25m. Lallana is a £15m player at the absolute, extreme most. Shaw to United for £30m?? Really?? United are paying for both potential and compensating Southampton for the development of Shaw but that''s still just silly money.

- The Premier League likes to brag that it''s the best in the world. The reason for this is because if the foreign imports. It''s apparently much more important to have the best league rather than the best national team. Clearly because there''s more money to be had by having the world''s best league.

- Tied in with the above. Not enough english players are playing top level football. They are losing their places to foreign imports. Think Sturridge before he was saved by Liverpool. He could''ve easily fallen by the wayside.

- Germany had 5 or 6 players in their team last night that beat England in the Under 21 Euro Championship 5 years ago. I don''t think England had any of the players from that team playing in this world cup.

- Old boys club at the FA. Still think this is a big problem. I don''t think Hodgson helps this situation. I think we need younger, more dynamic people involved, as opposed to the old guard who have done us next to no good at all. 48 years without a world cup is embarrassing.

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Well...if you read my opening post, the point of all of this is that the German FA; in a cooperation with the clubs, took the power back from owners to the supporters, and restructured the system in the nation so that it benefitted the national team, and benefitted the upraising of German talent.

Since the clubs are owned by the supporters, there are no foreigners who can easily take over the club, and bring in foreing managers, with foreign ideas and foreign players.

It all starts at the top in this case. A plan must be founded, and it must be followed by all clubs.

But in England, there is this offcast called Premier League. It makes it impossible for the FA to create rules to be followed by all clubs in the nation. The Premier League lives its own life, cut off from the Football league.

It is s structural problem, which in the end ends up as a financial problem, and further ahead ends up sucking the life out of English football.

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[quote user="The Butler"]

Has anyone looked at the size and population of Germany since unification.

Then compare with England (not UK)

There is a lot more to choose from.

Look at the number of English players (not GB players)

[/quote]Unfortunately that little part of your idea comes a bit unstuck when you look at countries like Holland, Belgium and Croatia .And in S America,  Chile , Costa Rica etc.Much smaller populations than England, but far more successful national football team wise........

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Arrest me if I''m wrong, but I think it was Arsene Wenger who once said:

"You must choose between having the best league in the world or the best national team. You can''t have both".

Very wise words indeed

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[quote user="YellowNets1901"] The Premier League likes to brag that it''s the best in the world. The reason for this is because if the foreign imports. It''s apparently much more important to have the best league rather than the best national team. .[/quote]Fair point, but it''s only part of the issue. One of the lame excuses for setting up the PL in the first place and enticing the best foreign talent was that our boys would learn from World Class players. But how many genuinely world class players are there in the EPL ? Love him or hate him, Suarez is world class, but he''s been lost to La Liga . Ditto, Bale and Ronaldo . OK we''ve got Diego Costa and Alexis Sanchez coming in, but are they really world class ? Certainly not on the evidence of this World Cup. The only English player who could vaguely be described as world class is Rooney, and even that is debatable.Which EPL players would people say are genuine world class performers now ?

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Ultimately it''s down to the English public though. Sky TV in Germany struggles and is no way the success that Sky TV in the UK is. Germans are more likely to be playing and coaching football on a Sunday then shopping which is not an option or paying to watch Sky TV. It''s too easy to blame organisations. Ultimately it is the public who decide their activities and how they spend their time and money.

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[quote user="Reggie Strayshun"][quote user="The Butler"]

Has anyone looked at the size and population of Germany since unification.

Then compare with England (not UK)

There is a lot more to choose from.


Look at the number of English players (not GB players)

[/quote]

Unfortunately that little part of your idea comes a bit unstuck when you look at countries like Holland, Belgium and Croatia .And in S America,  Chile , Costa Rica etc.Much smaller populations than England, but far more successful national football team wise........
[/quote]

This time round Reggie (with the exception of Holland).

You will always get some teams over performing that will drift back to a norm when the present crop of talent wanes.

We won in 66 came close several times after that (If we could take penalties!)

That was when we had English players in an English league.

 

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[quote user="Reggie Strayshun"][quote user="YellowNets1901"] The Premier League likes to brag that it''s the best in the world. The reason for this is because if the foreign imports. It''s apparently much more important to have the best league rather than the best national team. .[/quote]

Fair point, but it''s only part of the issue. One of the lame excuses for setting up the PL in the first place and enticing the best foreign talent was that our boys would learn from World Class players. But how many genuinely world class players are there in the EPL ? Love him or hate him, Suarez is world class, but he''s been lost to La Liga . Ditto, Bale and Ronaldo . OK we''ve got Diego Costa and Alexis Sanchez coming in, but are they really world class ? Certainly not on the evidence of this World Cup. The only English player who could vaguely be described as world class is Rooney, and even that is debatable.

Which EPL players would people say are genuine world class performers now ?
[/quote]

The term ''World Class'' is very vague, but I would say there are quite a few in the Prem;

Ozil, Fabregas, Yaya Toure, Ageruo, Kompany, Joe Hart, Alexis Sanchez, Diego Costa, David Silva, Juan Mata, Robin van Persie, David de Gea, Courtais, Matic, etc - just off the top of my head.

 

I would say you point about the arguements used to set up the EPL being completely false are true though. If teams just brought in ''world class'' talent it would be fine, but it is the variety of players brought in as squad fillers that have really damaged the future for English players. This coupled with the fact that the wages in the Prem are so much higher than every other league mean young English players feel moving to the foreign league to get games is a step down. Tom Ince recently showed he''d rather earn big money at a mid-table Prem team than challenge himself and go play for Inter Milan.

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[quote user="grefstad"]Arrest me if I''m wrong, but I think it was Arsene Wenger who once said:

"You must choose between having the best league in the world or the best national team. You can''t have both".

Very wise words indeed[/quote]I think that sums up nicely just how the Premiership has destroyed English football.

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[quote user="Reggie Strayshun"]Unfortunately that little part of your idea comes a bit unstuck when you look at countries like Holland, Belgium and Croatia .And in S America,  Chile , Costa Rica etc.Much smaller populations than England, but far more successful national football team wise........[/quote]They aren''t though. None of those teams have won a world cup (let alone a world war) and in terms of overall world cup record ours is better than all of them.[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-25233859]All Time World Cup League Table[/url]

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[quote user="grefstad"]Well...if you read my opening post, the point of all of this is that the German FA; in a cooperation with the clubs, took the power back from owners to the supporters, and restructured the system in the nation so that it benefitted the national team, and benefitted the upraising of German talent.

Since the clubs are owned by the supporters, there are no foreigners who can easily take over the club, and bring in foreing managers, with foreign ideas and foreign players.

It all starts at the top in this case. A plan must be founded, and it must be followed by all clubs.

But in England, there is this offcast called Premier League. It makes it impossible for the FA to create rules to be followed by all clubs in the nation. The Premier League lives its own life, cut off from the Football league.

It is s structural problem, which in the end ends up as a financial problem, and further ahead ends up sucking the life out of English football.[/quote]An excellent OP. As for the malign influence of the Premier League, I don''t doubt that is a factor. But England''s under-achievement long predates Sky coming on the scene.If you take reaching semi-finals as a reasonable benchmark of success in a tournament, then England''s record, for a supposedly major footballing nation, of two World Cup SFs is pitiful. It is below that of The Netherlands, Uruguay and Sweden (all much smaller countries) and only level with such as Austria, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Yugoslavia (as was - if you add Croatia they add up to three) and the former  Czechoslovakia.The same is true for the European Championships. Two semi-finals reached in a total of 14 tournaments.

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Ozil, Fabregas, Yaya Toure, Ageruo, Kompany, Joe Hart, Alexis Sanchez, Diego Costa, David Silva, Juan Mata, Robin van Persie, David de Gea, Courtais, Matic, etc - just off the top of my head.

Would agree with those I''ve highlighted, BYG, but would question the rest . I''m not saying that they are not excellent players...but world class.....Mata ??!!Your other point is a very good one, but in fairness there are other leagues that have plenty foreign representation. The Spanish and Portuguese leagues have a lot of South American imports. The French league is awash with Africans of one sort or another . Same with Dutch Eredivisie .Even Serie A is not short of foreign imports. And all these countries have out performed England on the International stage for donkey''s years

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I''m sure we''ve had these debates on here before....but I''ve said before and i''ll say again....for starters they have 90m people in Germany compared to 50m in England, which is also the largest population in western Europe............and secondly they are not wasting their time and resources and school and in clubs in minority team sports like rugby and cricket, how many players .I wonder might we lose to other sports we play in England that they don''t in Germany??

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[quote user="A Gay Schoolboy"][quote user="Reggie Strayshun"]Unfortunately that little part of your idea comes a bit unstuck when you look at countries like Holland, Belgium and Croatia .And in S America,  Chile , Costa Rica etc.Much smaller populations than England, but far more successful national football team wise........[/quote]They aren''t though. None of those teams have won a world cup (let alone a world war) and in terms of overall world cup record ours is better than all of them.[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-25233859]All Time World Cup League Table[/url][/quote]That proves that you can do anything with statistics, AGS. I think what most of us are interested in  is RECENT records...not trading on past glories. I think that there''s even an element of that with the Brazilians tbh.We also need to take Euro Championships/Copa America stats into account  too, and apart from Euro 96, we''ve been woeful at them too !

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[quote user="Reggie Strayshun"]That proves that you can do anything with statistics, AGS. I think what most of us are interested in  is RECENT records...not trading on past glories. I think that there''s even an element of that with the Brazilians tbh.We also need to take Euro Championships/Copa America stats into account  too, and apart from Euro 96, we''ve been woeful at them too ![/quote]What time period is acceptable to you? Unless your answer is "in the last 2 months" I''m reasonably sure our record will be better than all the teams you mentioned except maybe Holland.

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[quote user="A Gay Schoolboy"][quote user="Reggie Strayshun"]That proves that you can do anything with statistics, AGS. I think what most of us are interested in  is RECENT records...not trading on past glories. I think that there''s even an element of that with the Brazilians tbh.We also need to take Euro Championships/Copa America stats into account  too, and apart from Euro 96, we''ve been woeful at them too ![/quote]What time period is acceptable to you? Unless your answer is "in the last 2 months" I''m reasonably sure our record will be better than all the teams you mentioned except maybe Holland.[/quote]Purple answers that point in his posting above.......

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[quote user="Reggie Strayshun"]Purple answers that point in his posting above.......[/quote]Costa Rica: never got to a semi finalChile: 1 semi final, in 1962Croatia: 1 semi final, in 1998Belgium: 1 semi final, in 1986Holland: 3 finals (1974, 1978, 2010). 2 semi finals (1998, 2014).England: 2 world wars, 1 world cup, 1 semi final.

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