German Football

Stielike ran out and, to complete his warm up. 'He sprinted round the edge of the Wembley pitch .. twice!'

Possibly there is no football so misunderstood as that of Germany. Non-Germans may think of them as professional, nearly invincible, and always playing the same style of football.

The facts do not bear out these perceptions though. Here are just a few examples:
Professionalism came late to German football and the national team regularly lost to professional teams such as England and Austria, sometimes by a large margin. Indeed the Austrian Wunderteam managed 6-0 and 5-0 wins over their northern neighbours in 1931.

As for a homogenized playing style, even relatively early on we see the great pre-World War II Schalke 04 played the ball on the ground in short quick passes while, in the main, the Berlin teams played a fast English-style long ball game.

Let's look at the German record at club level as far as European tournaments are concerned. In the appendix of the book Tor! The Story of German Football by Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger, we can see impressively lengthy lists of finals in which German teams have taken part.

However, if we look at only the winners of European finals, up to and including 2004, the German contribution looks decidedly second-rate.
Examining the data more closely then:

European Champions Cup Winners 1956-2004

Spanish teams: 10
Italian teams: 10
English teams: 9
(English teams banned 1985-90 after Heysel Stadium deaths).
German teams: 6
1974 Bayern München
1975 Bayern München
1976 Bayern München
1983 Hamburg SV
1997 Borussia Dortmund
2001 Bayern München

UEFA Cup Winners (formerly, the Inter City Fairs Cup, until 1971) 1957-2004

English teams: 10
Spanish teams: 9
Italian teams: 8
German teams: 6
1975 Borussia Moenchengladbach
1979 Borussia Moenchengladbach
1980 Eintracht Frankfurt
1988 Bayer Leverkusen
1996 Bayern München
1997 Schalke 04

European Cup-Winners' Cup Winners 1961-99

English teams: 8
Spanish teams: 7
Italian teams: 7
German teams: 5
1966 Borussia Dortmund
1967 Bayern München
1974 FC Magdeburg
1977 Hamburg SV
1992 Werder Bremen

Association Football as a sport had confused beginnings in Germany and was poorly thought of particularly by conservatives in that country due to its foreign origins. The first German players looked to England for inspiration as well as heroes. The adherence of the authorities to an ideal of amateurism – as it was with Rugby Union in the past – led to poor standards; additionally, it meant under-the-table payments and, for public consumption, fictitious professions to which players were supposed to belong.

At least German footy cannot be tarred with the same brush of corruption as that of the Italian game.
Oops, wrong again. Witness the scandal that broke in 2005 in Germany. Referee Robert Hoyzer has admitted his involvement with match fixing to his lawyer, according to TV News channel N24, Suddeutsche Zeitung and the tabloid newspaper Bild have reported the suggestion of involvement of Croatian criminal gangs in the scandal. Hoyzer has been suspended by the German FA, the Deutscher Fußball Bund (DFB), and he may spend ten years in gaol. More suspensions and arrests seem likely as investigations continue. Not too pretty an image for a country less than 18 months away from hosting the 2006 World Cup.

In 2000 there was the Christoph Daum affair, in which the former manager of Bayer Leverkusen, in line for promotion to national team supreme, at first denied taking cocaine, but then he consented to having a hair tested for the drug. The positive result meant he was on the next plane to Florida rather than the national team HQ.

Prior to that, in the 1970s, corruption was up and attendances down for Deutscher Fußball Bund (DFB) Bundesliga matches. As for the 60s, Hesse-Lichtenberger states that in the Bundesliga '.. there were probably more hidden accounts and suitcases filled with cash than in all the world's dubious offshore tax havens put together.'

The book from which the above quote was taken - Tor! The Story of German Football - is a fascinating account of the game in Germany: its roots in the athletic clubs of the eighteenth century; the World Wars; the first international successes; the subsequent formation of the DFB in West Germany; the game in East Germany; and up to the present state of the game.

Written by Dortmund fan Hesse-Lichtenberger, who doesn't shirk passing judgment on those with whom he disagrees, the book also goes into the geo-political reasons for the health or otherwise of German football.

Together with the lesser-known figures he mentions, there are all the famous players of the game: Günther Netzer, Overath, Paul Breitner, Berti Vogts, Uli & Dieter Hoeness, Rudi Völler, Kevin Keegan, Effenberg, Jürgen Klinsmann, Fritz Walter, et al, as well as the five German European Footballers of the Year – Gerd Müller, Franz Beckenbauer, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Lothar Matthäus and Matthias Sammer. And the teams: amongst others, Borussia Moenchengladbach, Borussia Dortmund, Werder Bremen, Hamburg, Kaiserslautern, Schalke 04, Köln, Stuttgart, 1860, and, of course, the most powerful and successful team in the land: Bayern Munich.

But it is in the international sphere where Germany has achieved real success, and Hesse-Lichtenberger recounts not only the excitement of the wins, but also the tentative national feelings aroused in the post-World War II period. It's a must-read for anyone interested in the game as it is played in Germany.

(West) Germany's fine World Cup record is equal to that of Italy, with 3 wins apiece, with Brazil having won five times up to now (2005).
First, there was the unlikely German win (as West Germany) against the brilliant Hungarian team of Puskas and Hidegkuti in Switzerland in 1954.
Then they scraped past Holland at home in 1974.
In Italy, a lackluster match saw Germany overcome Maradona's Argentina.
West Germany 3 Hungary 2 1954 (in Switzerland).
West Germany 2 Holland 1 1974 (in Germany).
Germany 1 Argentina 0 1990 (in Italy).

European Championships Winners. They have won this 3 times – more than any other nation.
West Germany 3 USSR 0 1972 (in Belgium).
West Germany 2 Belgium 1 1980 (in Italy).
Germany 2 Czech Republic 1 1996 (in England)

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