"Germany Will Have Even Better Players in the Future"

A former Bundesliga player and coach of the youth team (17-18-year-olds) at southern German club SC Freiburg, which won the Junior German Cup this year, Christian Streich is widely considered one of Germany's leading youth soccer coaches. Many of the players he has helped coach in the past play for the Bundesliga today.

DW-WORLD.DE: Germany was one of the biggest positive surprises of the 2006 World Cup. Before the tournament, there were fears of a humiliating exit, some even called for coach Jürgen Klinsmann to quit. Today he's celebrated as a national hero. How do you explain the sudden turnaround?

Christian Streich: Klinsmann had several weeks before the World Cup to prepare and the players, who were under immense pressure, realized they aren't individually gifted like the stars of England, Argentina, Italy or Brazil. So there was a lot of team building involved. The players understood that they could only achieve something if they rallied together. The scientific groundwork too was very good -- the players were made to train a lot and it was all conceptually good, even the breaks were taken at the right time. In addition, Michael Ballack, who is an absolutely dominating player, placed himself completely at the team's service. Since Ballack interpreted his role as more of a defensive one, he gave the other defensive players a huge dose of security.

The last European Championship in 2004 was marked by attacking play, but there was hardly any trace of that this time. Never before have there been so few goals during a World Cup. Why is that?

It's tough to say. Soccer doesn't usually follow a cycle. Of course it's easier to play well defensively than it is to play forward and attack. Naturally, the teams and the players now know each other so well as never before. Almost all South Americans play in Europe -- there are almost no secrets among the players anymore. You can study the special qualities of the attacking players well in advance and then work against them in a targeted manner. You can also take out a Ronaldinho if two defensive players are constantly sticking to him.

But you could see the enormous pressure in the final 16 round at this World Cup. It would naturally have been humiliating for traditional teams such as England, Portugal etc. to crash out in the first knockout stage -- they played extremely defensively out of fear.

Until a few years ago, there was a lot of concern about young talent in Germany. In this World Cup, Germany had one of the youngest teams, which is now predicted to have a brilliant future. Do you think Germany is back on track as a soccer force to reckon with?

The reason the German team is so young is because we're missing an entire generation of players particularly from western Germany. It's no coincidence that Ballack and Bernd Schneider grew up in former communist East Germany. We didn't invest in producing new talent for an entire decade in West Germany and that's why we don't have a broad pool. But thanks to the youth centers that all professional clubs now have to set up and the intensified attempt to promote young talent, Germany's national under-21 team is filled with regular players from Bundesliga clubs -- without exception. About six to seven years ago, the squad consisted of players who played about three times during the entire Bundesliga season for their clubs. Today there are 30 regular players in the Bundesliga under the age of 21.

Yes, Germany's back on track -- but that curbs the shining future being ascribed to the current German team that played in this World Cup. I doubt whether we'll see all the players during the next World Cup. I think the squad will be fundamentally different. Germany will have even better players in the future -- those who are 18 right now and who will be individually better when they're 22 or 23. The talent pool has become significantly better -- and if the base is right -- then we can pull up good players from it. That would then bring us to the same level as say France, England and Italy -- there's no doubt about that.

What sparked the efforts to improve youth coaching?

There was a problem with Germany winning the World Cup in 1990. You began to believe the fairytales that Germany always wins in the end and that the team is physically superior -- which of course wasn't true at all at that time. But gradually the methods of training were overhauled, there was more emphasis on technique and since about 1998, youth training at the German Football Association (DFB) has undergone massive reform. There are now over 300 youth training centers, every professional club has to have one and even a junior Bundesliga has been established. For that we've looked towards countries such as France, Italy and Argentina to see how they nurture young talent. Germany has come off its high pedestal and has adapted to the needs of modern soccer -- but we needed 10 years to do that, to learn from our own mistakes.

Did the sports schools in former Communist East Germany serve as a model?

Some structures have been preserved in eastern Germany. For instance, in eastern cities like Dresden and Jena, the boys train eight to 10 times a week. But since education remains the preserve of the federal states in Germany, we youth trainers in western Germany have a problem. For instance, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, it's really difficult to push through intensive sports classes at school and thus offer the boys more training time. A Brazilian or an Argentinean player has usually spent about 20-30,000 hours with the ball by the time he's 17 -- a European could never catch up with that. You can compare the situation with that of a pianist: if one practices six hours a day he will someday be better than the pianist who only practices three hours daily -- irrespective of talent. The amount of time you practice is what counts, especially in soccer.

The South Americans are definitely ahead of the game, but they have other problems to cope with. I know that from youth training centers in Sao Paolo where the boys play soccer the entire day and then have school at nine in the night -- by which time they're exhausted and fall asleep. They have a completely different social structure. But what we have to manage here in Germany is that the boys get enough time to train like, for instance, at Aston Villa in England. There the boys train nine times a week and have just 12 hours of school every week as compared to our 33 hours in Germany. On the other hand, the youth coaches there are relatively unbothered about the future of players who don't become career professionals. That would be unthinkable in Germany.

Germany's performance at this World Cup has earned glowing praise abroad too. Did you as a coach enjoy their streak too?

I was very happy to see that they tried to play an attacking game. There are a few players in the German squad who are generous and have lots of empathy for the game -- Philipp Lahm and Miroslav Klose for instance. The Germans were a team who played honest and clear soccer and always wanted to net goals. That wins hearts abroad if you like soccer -- and naturally all the more so because many teams who were even more successful at this World Cup played more defensively.

Was Germany really world-class or was it the home advantage that was responsible for its performance?

It was only for a few years that Germany wasn't part of the top league internationally and that's the case with all countries. You're never always on top. Not in soccer and not otherwise.

What lessons can the Germans draw from this World Cup?

Under no circumstances should Germany make too big a deal of its achievement and become smug. The old German attributes of physical superiority and the will to win are rubbish -- every team from Togo to Italy has that, provided they have the right character.

Germany must make an effort to see what the other countries are doing and learn from it. But then it should also rely on its own strengths with a good dose of self-confidence because we now once again have lots of talent here.