Are there lessons for England from Germany's successful 2010 World Cup Campaign?

Are there lessons for England from Germany's successful 2010 World Cup Campaign?


England had one in 2010, but Germany had two Bloemfonteins in its rather recent football history: The first one was Lyon during the 1998 World Cup. Germany lost 3:0 to Croatia, and left France almost as disgraceful as France left South Africa in 2010. Berti Vogts, then manager of Germany, refused to shake hands with his Croatian counterpart Blazevic. He smelled a conspiracy of FIFA due to Germany’s prior successes, accusing the referee to intentionally destroy the German game. However, reality looked somewhat different, albeit less intriguing. From the beginning of the World Cup, all the problems, which had piled up since the last German win of the World Cup in 1990, were obvious. Germany's over-aged team was slow in their head and in their feet. It had played horrible football during the group stages and was extremely lucky to survive the 2nd round encounter with Mexico. Before travelling to France, Vogts had persuaded a few of the old World-cup winning team of 1990 to come back, because a few of the more influential European Champions of 1996, like Mathias Sammer, were injured. 37-year old libero Matthäus played behind another relict from better days, stopper Jürgen Kohler. Olaf Thon and Thomas Häßler tried to ignite a spark in a very uninspired midfield. Vogts left the most exciting player of the Bundesliga at the time, Mehmet Scholl from Bayern Munich, at home, and wasted a spot on the squad with Steffen Freund, who was neither good enough in the first place, nor fit to play. The 2:0 win over Iran in the first round was a historical one in only one perspective: never before, and never again did Germany field a team with an average age as old as 31.7 years. The squad did not deserve to be called a team, because the two alpha-males in the group, Lothar Matthäus and Jürgen Klinsmann, bitter enemies for years prior to the tournament, functioned as two big wedges. The devastating defeat against Croatia came as no surprise and was well deserved. One could argue whether the red card against defender Christian Wörns was justified – Croatia’s Davor Suker was known for his theatrical diving, but one should rather focus on the really awful cross by the museum artefact Matthäus, which brought Wörns into the one-on-one with Suker in the first place. Afterwards, Berti Vogts resigned – partly because he himself felt it was time to go, partly because his standing in the association, as well as with the public was too tenuous to hold on to his post.

Some people thought that the World Cup in France was about as bad as it could get. But, it got worse: the second Bloemfontein was Rotterdam during the EURO 2000. Gentleman Erich Ribbeck had taken over from Berti Vogts, and Germany would not have qualified for the finals for the first time since decades, had it not been for Turkey’s inability to make use of Germany’s shortcomings in the qualifiers. After a very lucky, and uninspired 1:1 against Romania, as well as a 0:1 defeat against England, Germany still had a chance to proceed to the 2nd round, because England had lost against Romania. However, sometimes, the Gods of football are just: Then Assistant coach Horst Hrubesch, a hard man called the “header monster” during his playing days, had tears in his eyes, when Germany went out of the tournament in the last group game. The team around the still present, almost 40-year old Lothar Matthäus, still playing the tactically medieval “Libero”, had no chance whatsoever in their 3:0 defeat against Portugal; a Portugal that fielded its whole bench, because they were qualified for the 2nd round already prior to the match. Only goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, as well as upcoming youngster Sebastian Deisler, had moments during the tournament that gave German football a little bit of hope. After the German yellow press got wind of the party the team celebrated after being eliminated from the tournament, the players got more stick when they arrived home than any other German team ever before or after.

Finally, the rather slow German Football Association (DFB) woke up and moved. The youth development and talent sighting system was completely overhauled. The DFB took considerable amounts of money into its hand and employed 29 new youth coordinators, as well as 1,000 new coaches to establish regional achievement clusters throughout the country. As a second step, the clubs of the Bundesliga were forced to establish performance centers. Yet, success was not directly around the corner. Former national hero Rudi Völler took over as interim coach. Although Germany went straight through to the final in the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, this could not be traced to the new established youth development systems, but rather on the strong character of the team around the truly remarkable goalie Oliver Kahn, and old war horses like Didi Hamann whose maxim was but one thing: discipline. EURO 2004 held the next dip in stock for football Germany. Although not quite as bad as four years before, Germany again did not make it past the group stages – they deservedly lost to an already qualified Czech Republic in the last group game. Völler had enough, and he was replaced by his 1990 striking partner Jürgen Klinsmann, who brought with him new ideas and a fresh breeze, maybe imported from his place of residence, Huntington Beach in California. In 2006, Germany somewhat surprisingly, made it to the semi-finals, and the style of play was already different than ever before. Most people would agree that Germany played the most refreshing football of all the teams already in 2006. They lost the final to a superior, and very precise and clever Italian squad, but the home World Cup was certainly a turnaround. After just two years at the rudder, Klinsmann resigned, and his assistant, Joachim Löw took over. Joachim Löw was a good second league, but a rather mediocre Bundesliga-player. His coaching record before taking the Germany job in 2004 (as assistant), and in 2006 as the head-coach did not look much better. However, he had established a clear idea of how he wanted his team to play. And, although from a football connoisseur’s point of view the football played was a step backwards, Löw led his team into the EURO 2008 final. The highlight of the tournament, maybe not only from a German perspective, was Germany’s win against Portugal in the second round; a game that left frustrated Christiano Ronaldo with tears in his eyes. In this game, Rolfes and Hitzelsberger took over for the injured Frings and the suspended Ballack – somewhat a rough draft for the future. After this tournament, Löw resolutely put new, young players into the hot seat, partly because he had to. He needed to replace goalie Robert Enke after his suicide. Mostly, however, he wanted the old guys with their slow approach to the game out. Thus, he profited from the new youth development system.

Current squad members like Kießling, Gomez, Aogo and Kroos were discovered in the aforementioned DFB regional clusters. Müller (Bayern Munich), Boateng (Hertha BSC Berlin, then Hamburger SV and soon Manchester City), Özil (Schalke 04, now Werder Bremen), and Khedira originate from the performance centres established at the respective Bundesliga-clubs. Recently, there were again tears in Horst Hrubesch's eyes, when the German Under 19 and Under 21 (with Neuer, Özil, Aogo, Boateng, Khedira and Marin from the current World Cup squad), both coached by him, became European Champions. The German Under 17 currently also holds the European title. Thus, it seems fair to say that the German team, which impressed with its fast-paced style of attacking football in South Africa, was conceived in Lyon 1998, and born in Rotterdam in 2000. However, if one tries to assess the German success in 2010, one has to also take into consideration, that quite some luck was involved on a few levels, in a few areas. Löw’s decision to omit long-serving midfield strongman Thorsten Frings from the squad was met with as much headwind, as his decision to not recall on-form striker Kuranyi after he fell out with him in 2008. Instead, he put his faith in Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose, both of which had horrible seasons with their respective clubs, FC Cologne and Bayern Munich. Luckily, both players exploded – certainly Klose, and also Podolski to an extend – and they were very instrumental in getting Germany on track in South Africa, but it was a big risk the coach took. Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Müller, and Badstuber were not only in the German squad for South Africa 2010, but were also very instrumental for Bayern Munich to reach the Champions League final against Inter Milan. However, Dutch coach van Gaal was needed to resolutely bank on those young players – as Joachim Löw did for the national team. Moreover, Michael Ballack’s injury in the FA Cup final, which seemed to be an incredible curse at the time, transformed into a blessing. Although there are a few voices within the team (mainly Bastian Schweinsteiger) who consider the German team stronger without Ballack, most will regard the skipper (or former skipper, who knows at this point) as deadweight now. Finally, who knows what would have happened if Lampard’s equalizer would have counted…

However, fact is that the young German team, the youngest Germany has sent to a tournament since 1934 (!) impressed the world with its forward going, fast-paced style of football in South Africa. It is no exaggeration to assign a large part of the success to coach Joachim Löw for having the stamina to withstand the pressure of the press and of many “experts” in German football, to choose his squad according to his own principles and ideas. His players had to be young, hungry, quick, and willing to follow one big game plan. Contrary to former tournaments and set-ups of German national teams with strong alpha-male leaders (like Matthäus, Sammer or Ballack), the 2010-generation has a very flat hierarchy, and all the players seem to be able to bring their unique talents into the squad. There are even more fruits to harvest from the overhaul of the youth development system, more exciting young players in the German squad, like Marco Marin of Werder Bremen, and especially Toni Kroos, now back at Bayern Munich. Add to that the large number of youngsters waiting to make their debut in the national team, Mats Hummels of Borussia Dortmund, Benedict Höwedes of Schalke 04, and Marco Reus of Borussia Mönchengladbach, to name a few, and one can understand the enthusiasm the Germans look towards the EURO 2012 and the World Cup 2014. German clubs have finally realized that it does pay to field young players from their own academies, and they no longer rely so heavily on B-rated foreigners who stay on for a year, and then ship to another club.

And, if Germany can do it, why should England not be able to. It does not appear to be an impossible task to implement similar youth development and talent sighting measures in England. The English are as soccer-mad as the Germans, possibly madder. The Premier League is the most economically successful football league in the world. Therefore, there must be enough money to establish the aforementioned measures. If not, why not cut back on remuneration for one underperforming coach of former glory to entrust a more down-to-earth local, who actually knows English football, with the task to build a team for the future. Fabio Capello receives a whopping 6 million pounds a year! How many regional clusters could be established with just one third of that? Certainly, the large amounts of debts of nearly all English Premier League clubs might force the responsible persons on club-level to focus on youth development anyways, though. Youth development, which goes beyond the sighting of special talent at other, foreign youth academies. It does not seem that far off the mark to assume that English clubs will bring out English youngsters, and not only talented foreigners like Fabregas (Arsenal) or Obertan (United). Thus, there is some hope that youngsters like Joe Hart or Theo Walcott, and others, will join James Millner (the only member of the European Under 21 runner-up in the starting line-up at the World Cup 2010) in the future.

An abbreviated and edited version was published at www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/5580/38