Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does » German lessons for Arsenal?
By Nick Tolhurst
The truth about the success of the German national team and what it means for Arsenal.
Despite losing to Spain in the semi-final, the story of this year’s world cup has without doubt been the rise of a new, exciting and multi-cultural young German team that has put much heralded and more expensive teams, such as England, to shame.
The simple narrative, much repeated in the papers, on radio and television by the “Punditocracy”, is that Germany has reaped the benefits of, like Arsenal, massively investing in youth while dramatically loosening nationality criteria. The truth is rather more complex and nuanced with both encouraging signs for Arsenal, but also warnings as well.
Before examining the reasons behind the success of Germany it is first necessary to swat away the false claims that somehow seem to have become accepted wisdom. While it’s true that some of the German team might look “a bit different” from the “traditional” German footballers of the 1970s, and the names seem sometimes less obviously “typical German” the idea that the national team is somehow a bunch of hurriedly collected together foreigners and “not quite Germans” is wide of the mark.
In fact every German team picked at the South Africa World Cup consisted almost without exception of players who were either born in Germany or had German parents or grandparents. The assumption that the national team is not “quite German” is based on ideas of the country that are at least four decades out of date. Indeed, the oft cited case of Mesit Ozil is particularly silly as he is a third generation German from the industrial heartland of Gelsenkirchen (a kind of German equivalent of Newcastle). If this is somehow “not German enough” then quite a few English players would have similar problems in qualifying for England!
However, on to more important issues: how has Germany succeeded in building a national team of young winners? Can England follow their example and more importantly for readers of this website what lessons does the success provide for Arsenal?
First the good news: it should now have become clear – even to the very last functionary at FA – that Arsenal’s strategy of intensive coaching of highly technically competent ball players from the youngest age possible is correct and holds more hope out for England’s long term future than a reliance on too early competitive matches, the long ball game and an emphasis on strength and size over initial skill level and natural athleticism.
But, what of the logistics of Germany’s success? Much has been made of the fact that Germany (like many European countries) has vastly more trained coaches holding Uefa’s A, B and Pro licences (35,000 to England’s 2,700), but little discussion has centred on the many implications of this.
It is not just obviously that there are more trained coaches in Germany, but that with 35,000 odd spread around the country even clubs based in small towns and villages have access to top class coaching.
Have you ever wondered why the vast majority of English footballers always seem to hail from the same areas? If promising schoolboys in Devon or Herefordshire don’t ever see a competent coach one can hardly expect these regions to produce decent footballers. The current German national team consists of players drawn from all over Germany – large city or small village. It is worth noting that only one of the 23 man squad – Jérôme Boateng – hails from the largest city – Berlin. Makes one wonder about just how many decent schoolboy players England are missing out on, doesn’t it?
But it gets worse, much worse. A cursory look at the English player’s backgrounds reveal that the vast majority were trained as schoolboys with clubs from the top two divisions.
What’s wrong with that, you may ask? The problem is that this implies that either the top clubs are so good that they recognized at ages 10-14 all the good players in England and snapped them up, or that lower division clubs are simply incapable of coaching decently enough to bring through top quality players.
However, as Germany has shown, small village sides can, with the right structure, resources and training, bring through top internationals on their first steps on the road to a career. Indeed, most of the current German national team players’ first clubs while at school are village, town or suburban sides. The only logical conclusion that one can draw is that the pool of potential players England are drawing from is unnecessarily small and that if a promising schoolboy does not have the good luck to be living in the right area and to have caught the eye of a top team by the right age their chances of making it as an England international are roughly zero.
The final piece of bad news for England concerns the crucial 17-20 age period. Good Bundesliga teams nearly all run teams at the 3rd (sometimes 4th) level – that is equivalent to Division 1 and 2. These teams are far superior both to the reserve league or loan system English premier league clubs operate in that they are more competitive than the reserve league but build the ethos of the main “parent” team into the “second” (amateur) team.
In other words, when Arsenal lends a player to a Division 1 club it only has limited influence over the club and the way it trains and uses the player. This is completely different to Germany where, for example, Bayern Munich II in the 3rd league is set up exactly to ape Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga right down to formation, training and ethos.
Is it any wonder that players such as Thomas Müller or Holger Badstuber were able seamlessly move between the two clubs? This contrasts with England where one has the impression that even at Arsenal some of the loanees have to undergo a period of “re-education” after every loan spell is completed.
The above outlined points should give an idea why England seems to be falling behind Germany in producing top quality players who can transfer at a young age firstly into a top team and then into the national team. Of course there are many more reasons I could have outlined for which space is too limited to go into.
However, back to Arsenal, what are the implications for Arsenal of the German system? Firstly, and depressingly I would say that unless Arsenal gets hold of English players at an early age then the chances of building upon the work of lower division English clubs is vanishingly small.
It should come as no surprise that Arsenal best young prospect – Jack Wilshere – joined the club aged 9 and lives nearby. This helps to explain why Arsenal has seemed almost stubbornly averse to taking on English players after the age of 14. Unless the current set up changes I see little reason why Arsenal should change this policy.
On a more positive note rumours of Arsenal’s defection from the Reserve league system offers an intriguing new option. With clubs in England as well as the rest of Europe suffering in the economic downturn there may well be possibilities to build “semi-detached” sides which could be used as training grounds for arsenal players.
Imagine a French Ligue 2 club (or indeed English, German or Spanish clubs) which would obtain help and resources to follow the Arsenal way and best practices while receiving 4 or 5 youngsters every season from Arsenal to play in the first team. Surely this would be a better system than the present one? I have sensed over the last few seasons that Arsene Wenger was trying to do this, if with limited success, with clubs like Salamanca. If the reserve side really is cancelled, then one can only assume that something along these lines has already been planned. How many English players would go through this system remains to be seen.
However, here’s a thought: imagine an English team at the World cup in 2018 consisting of a majority of young 20 something cosmopolitan Arsenal players all of whom can speak at least one foreign language, had spent time abroad and were comfortable with the ball. The Sun and Clive Tyldesley might not like it but it might just be the saving of English football…..
Nick Tolhurst
Nick is a Germany based Arsenal fan and author of numerous articles and books, including most recently “Responsible Business” (Wiley 2010). Details of the book are avaialable from the publisher or via Amazon