Aside from the EURO 2024 run under Julian Nagelsmann on home soil, Germany just have not been good enough in any of the international tournaments they’ve played in since their 2014 World Cup triumph in Brazil. After the era of Das Reboot in the early 2000’s came to its zenith by virtue of winning the World Cup in Brazil, Germany has had a rough go of it on the world’s biggest stages. They didn’t make it out of the group stages at the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and lost out in the Round of 16 in EURO 2020
before getting knocked out in the Round of 32 this summer at the hands of Paraguay in a penalty shootout in Foxborough.
Former Germany and Bayern Munich forward Thomas Müller recently spoke about how individual player development in the country needs to be far better. He feels that the national team and the DFB as a whole is moving too far away from what made them so successful in getting back to where they were in the late 2010s after placing far more emphasis on youth academies, tactical flexibility, and the true art of gegenpressing.
For Müller, with the amount of money a lot of Bundesliga clubs have invested and spent on youth training centers and campuses, there should be far more emphasis on developing players and the DFB giving them the proper chances with the national team setup. Instead, he feels, too many talented players with great potential choose to go elsewhere to clubs abroad, running the risk of their development being hindered.
For this past season, Müller used Florian Wirtz and Nick Woltemade as examples, both of whom had their struggles adjusting to life in the Premier League at Liverpool and Newcastle United, respectively. “You can give us the example: Wirtz and Woltemade are going to England for a lot of money. Wirtz worked great in the Bundesliga in a setup in which the game was designed for him. Perhaps, thesis: If he stays at [Bayer] Leverkusen, he will come to this tournament with a completely different status. Nick Woltemade played great at Stuttgart, makes this move, goes to England, different style of play. This is also related to this. It’s not just that the DFB has to sort everything out now,” the Raumdeuter ranted to Magenta TV (via Kicker).
Jürgen Klopp, who was named Germany’s new manager to replace Nagelsmann, was right beside Müller for the MagentaTV punditry coverage of the World Cup final and added, “We have to get the children who do sports to play football. That’s it, that’s where it starts. There is talent, but we have to create expectations that the players can deal with.”
Join the conversation!
Sign up for a user account and get:
- New, improved notifications system!
- Fewer ads
- Create community posts
- Comment on articles, community posts
- Rec comments, community posts
