Whilst Spain’s tippy-tappy football has its admirers, the best team in Euro 2012 must surely be Germany. The German’s have swept aside all before them, including Portugal, Holland and Greece and may well be the favourite to go on and win the thing. It’s amazing just how far they’ve come over the last decade or so.
This point hasn’t been lost on German legend Didi Hamann. The defensive midfielder recently spoke to Yahoo Sports about the fortunes of his National side and the way that the introduction of young, talented footballers has helped to boost their credentials:
“When we went to the World Cup in 1998 I was the second youngest player at 24, we didn’t really have any young players coming through and so when we went to Euro 2000 we didn’t really have a good team. We drew the first game to Romania and lost to England so we still had a chance if we would have beaten Portugal but we didn’t.
However I think maybe this was something that had to happen for people to realise something had to change. These changes were made especially when Rudi Völler took over as he brought in a few younger players who were very successful during the 2002 World Cup.”
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Rudi’s attitude has continued to pervade German football right up until this very day. Bundesliga teams continue to pour money into their youth development, so we’ve seen more players come through and make their mark at International level. Hamann continues:
“I think they changed a lot with the youth development; they put centres of excellence in place where they observed the best players from every region and I believe it was a highly successful structure to have. As a result we produced a host of younger players over the coming years that are still playing today and are the spine of the team. I think this was definitely a change for the better which put German football back on the map.”
Take for instance, Mario Goetze, Borussia Dortmund’s unbelievably talented 20-year-old midfielder. As England look to Jack Wilshere, Germany look to Goetze. He really does have the potential to go on and be a world beater. Then there are players like Toni Kroos (21), Sven Bender (21), Alexander Merkel (19) and Lars Bender (21). These are all players who are going to have a massive influence on the German national side moving forward.
What does this mean for the rest of us? It means that we ought to be wary. Germany have learned from the mistakes of the past and now adopt an extremely forward thinking manner. Let’s hope that England can do the same.
For more insight from Dietmar Hamann and other leading managers plus all the coverage of Euro 2012 go to yahoo.eurosport.com
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