Football Made in Germany

In 2002 the German Football association (DFB) created a comprehensive talent-development program to ensure no promising young players escaped notice. Some 1300 paid coaches scout talents aged 11 to 15, who are trained at performance 366 centers. The best of them become national team players.

Ever since Carl Mentner (m) was spotted by the DFB and accepted into its developmental system, the 12-year-old’s life has changed completely. He now practices at least four times a week and has competitive games every weekend.

Since 2014 Hans-Dieter “Hansi” Flick, himself a former German junior national player, has been the DFB’s sports director. Prior to that, he served for eight years as the main assistant to Germany national coach Joachim Löw.

The DFB does has no national performance center. England (St. George's Park), Italy (Coverciano), France (Clairefontaine), the Netherlands (Zeist) and Spain (Ciudad del Fútbol) all have headquarters for their national teams. Germany will begin building one in Frankfurt am Main in 2017.

A native of Munich, Raphael Honigstein has lived in London since 1993. He writes about both the Bundesliga and the Premier League for Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung and The Guardian in England.

If you look at the Under 17, 19 and 21 European Championships, Germany haven’t done badly, winning four titles. But Spain, which won nine titles, set the clear standard. Germany’s last title was the 2014 Under 19 championship in Hungary.