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How Did The Germans Get So Darn Good At Soccer?
By Amanda | August 11, 2008
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Find more photos like this on Women's Professional Soccer
This is Chicago Red Stars Head Coach Emma Hayes’ slideshow from China. You can find it at fans.womensprosoccer.com.
Emma Hayes, the Head Coach of the Chicago Red Stars, is in China at the Olympic Games. Today, she blogged about the growing parity among teams at the world level. This post is my response to that blog. Here, I will look at the growth of women’s world soccer, the German development of the game in their home country, and what this means to the American market.
THE OLYMPICS
In the 1996 Olympic Games, FIFA reported, “Although Norway produced the expected strong performance and had the Americans on the verge of defeat, Europe lost its dominance in women’s football. The current world champions [Norway] were the only team to come up to expectation and win a medal.”
The final between the USA and PR China grew a record-setting crowd of 76,489. This record was beaten three years later by the final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup with the same teams before a crowd of 90,000 in Pasadena, CA.
The Olympics in Sydney 2000 saw Norway defeat the favored United States in an exhilarating final match. FIFA reports, “The quality of football on display was also of a very high standard, and the outcome a major surprise. Despite China’s elimination in the first round it was Sun Wen who finished the tournament as top scorer with four goals. Germany came in third after beating Brazil in the play-off and also won the Fair Play trophy.”
Again in Athens 2004, we saw the emergence of better soccer. The “Women’s football heavyweights, USA, looked out for the count on more than one occasion, but coach April Heinrich’s experienced team came back off the ropes to beat Brazil 2-1 after extra time and add a second Olympic title to the gold medal won at the 1996 Games in Atlanta. The Americans struggled for long periods in the Final and saw the woodwork come to their rescue twice as the aggressive and mobile South Americans, now unquestionably one of the world’s top teams, piled on the pressure only for the USA to cheat the hangman’s noose once again.”
Brazil were not the only team to show evidence of rapid progress in the middle reaches of international soccer. “Mexico, Nigeria, Japan and Australia have all taken great strides, although the Greek hosts’ lack of experience made them cannon fodder for the big guns. World champions Germany finished with bronze after a 1-0 victory in the third-place play-off against Sweden, but there will be much wringing of hands in the Chinese camp after a feeble first-round exit.”
Through these analyses, we can see that emergence of multiple soccer countries, and the greater parity between them at the highest levels. FIFA went so far to say, “The [2004] Women’s Olympic Football Tournament marked an end to the former, clearly defined hierarchy once and for all.”
KEEPING SCORE
If we were keeping a running score, it might look something like this:
1991 China, WWC: USA 1 - World 0 (USA)
1995 Sweden, WWC: USA 1 - World 1 (Norway)
1996 Atlanta Olympics: USA 2 - World 1 (USA)
1999 USA WWC: USA 3 - World 1 (USA)
2000 Sydney Olympics: USA 3 - World 2 (Norway)
2003 USA WWC: USA 3 - World 3 (Germany)
2004 Athens Olympics: USA 4 - World 3 (USA)
2007 China WWC: USA 4 - World 4 (Germany)
2008, USA ? - World ?
GLOBAL GROWTH
A 2006 FIFA report called “Big Count” reported that the number of registered female players around the world is up 54 per cent to 4.1 million. Click here for the cold hard numbers.
With 265 million male and female players and a further five million referees, coaches and other officials, a grand total of 270 million people, or four per cent of the world’s population are involved in football.
“Football’s popularity remains undiminished and is actually increasing,” reflected FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter with satisfaction on the results of the survey. “If you count the relatives and close friends of active participants in football, who share in their passion for the game as fans and support them in other ways, the total number is even more impressive: well over a billion people worldwide are involved in football - at all levels of society and across all borders.”
The overall total of 265 million male and female players is almost ten per cent higher than the number recorded six years ago (242 million). Of the 265 million, 26 million or around ten per cent are women. In 2000, that number was 20.1 million.
I find the Germans a particularly interesting study. In Germany, there are 1,870,633 registered female players, a fraction of the 7 million registered female players in America. How, then, in recent years, has Germany overtaken America’s place at the most dominant team in the world?
My answer: The Bundesliga.
GERMANY
The Germans are the current world champs, and are the favorites at the 2008 Women’s Olympic Games, in striking contrast to their group stage exit at Atlanta 1996 and bronze at Sydney 2000, and Athens.
FIFA reports, “Germany’s progress to the global summit of the women’s game was as impressive as it was inexorable. The reigning European champions did not concede a single goal on their way to defending the game’s top prize at the FIFA Women’s World Cup China 2007.”
Check out this video, the first of ten 10-minute documentaries about the German National Team. Pay particular attention to the level of detail and precision in their training - they use all the most advanced techniques from dynamic movements to body-weight resistance training to hours and hours of technical work on the ball. (You can go to YouTube to check out the additional 9 videos. Totally worth the time and subtitles.)
Germany has developed a comprehensive program for their players to compete year-round, at a very high level, through the Bundesliga.
The German Women’s Bundesliga was created, based on the model of the men’s Bundesliga, in 1991 by the German Football Association (DFB), and in 1997 it became a uniform league. There are 12 teams, and at the end of a season the clubs finishing 11th and 12th are replaced with the 2 winners of the second division. A Bundesliga season consists of two rounds with 22 games combined, with seasons running from August or September and ending in May or June.
That’s nearly a year-round schedule where the Germans are playing high-level competition day-in and day-out.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
How does the American calendar compare to the Germans? Few Americans are playing in high-level, year-round leagues. We have the W-League and the WPSL, which both harbor exceptional talent, but the cream of the crop - the top US players - don’t play here. They basically live in US residency camps, which are both frequent and lengthy.
While this is certainly a positive because our National Team is constantly exposed to amazing coaching and international competition, the system doesn’t allow them to train against anybody but, well themselves, domestically. In contrast, the Germans’ Bundesliga constantly challenges and develops overall soccer awareness in their players because they’re adjusting to different teams, styles of play and environments.
Don’t get me wrong. Our girls train their butts off. Have you seen any of the Studio 90 videos where they’re performing the beep test? Wow! But the Germans are also training. The Germans are also playing a full international schedule. That’s where they have a leg up - they’re also playing a full domestic schedule.
So America may be at the top in terms of the size of our player pool (in millions), but the game at the very top level demonstrates the need for a competitive league here in America for us to stay on top (it feel like I should be writing “for us to keep up” here instead).
On a side note, I am also particularly interested in the fact that the Germans are also coached by a German woman, Silvia Neid, a former national team stand-out player. The USA has hired a Swede to lead the development of our team at present. Sweden is another country with a very strong domestic women’s league, and in fact Pia Sundhage was a stand-out player for them as a top goal scorer in the history of the national team, scoring 71 goals in 146 games.
OTHER COUNTRIES ON THE RISE
Stephanie Pilard, France’s U19 National Team Coach, says, “Future development depends on giving players a steeper learning curve in terms of top level matches.” In the French league, top players train and study at one central location during the week, but go to their respective clubs on the weekend to compete. France’s Lyon has been a successful benefactor of this system, seeing considerable success in the UEFA Women’s Cup.
Karen Espelund of Norway writes, “An interesting development in Norway, where, for the first time, a women’s premier league, Klepp, has built it’s own stadium - and it seems likely that other teams will follow suit.” Norway defeated the USA 2-0 in their 2008 Olympic opener.
The Netherlands has formed a new professional league under the leadership of National Team Coach Vera Pauw. “The ultimate objective is to develop an elite sport structure and culture, and in the longer term, to perform at the International level with our “A” squad.” Their league consists of 6 senior clubs which play one another 4 times throughout the year. All teams are associated with a professional side in the KNVB.
England has a complex system within their domestic programming, but the highest level is the FA Women’s Premier League National Division. The league is played on a home and away basis, with each team playing each other twice, and points being awarded in the standard football format. Arsenal’s has won every domestic title England has to offer. Emma Hayes is their former Assistant Coach.
In this post, I haven’t even touched on Eastern, African and South American countries… both of which are seeing tremendous growth. More to follow on this, but an interesting case study is that of Argentina, which allowed 18 goals in the 2007 World Cup, but this 2008 Olympics they’ve only allowed 3 goals so far. “There has been improvement,” Marisa Gerez told FIFA.com after a slim 2-1 loss in their opener with Canada. “We have gotten better since previous tournaments and we are here to try and show that we can play football and compete with the other countries.”
WPS
To close our this post, I’ll refer back to Emma Hayes’ blog. While in China watching the Brazil, Germany, North Korea and Nigeria group, she writes, “Teams are becoming fitter, more organized, have more strength in depth and have more experiences at the highest level and that will provide even more changes in the pecking order of the Women’s game. I believe so strongly, that not only is the WPS going to be an incredible product for the world to see but will be an absolute necessity for our players in the USA to continue competing against the world’s best on a regular basis.”
Topics: Chicago Red Stars, Emma Hayes, Women's Soccer |
August 11th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
If you take a look at the Swedish Damallsvenskan, you’ll notice internationals from all over the world. Imagine what this has done for the Swedish National Team. They are able to play against top players day in and day out.
We saw the migration of German Nationals Ariane Hingst and Nadine Angerer from Bundesliga side Turbine Potsdam to Swedish power DjurgardensIF. We’ve seen Marta head to Umea IK. Lisa de Vanna to AIK. The list goes on and on and on…
Great leagues help to assist the development of national teams.
Thanks for linking the German documentary, I’ve been wanting to watch that for a long time.
August 14th, 2008 at 4:42 am
Thank you for this - what a great article!
I’m just an average player, playing for fun in her 40s - but having just played a year in England - where women’s football gets a really raw deal in terms of national/FA support, I was struck by the difference in terms of soccer-culture - it was easier to connect with women’s teams in competitive leagues, and just on a daily level, there’s an awareness about the game that just isn’t replicated even among women who play in weekend games etc. in the US - where women’s soccer is on the one hand well developed, but then on the other a world apart. I think some of the rapid development of the european teams grows from this - just a much higher level of day to day engagement with the game - and that engagement actually connects you to the world rather than removing you from it? Maybe I am overthinking this…
Anyway, I’ve also heard that in Germany girls can play on teams with boys until they are 17. Is that true?
Fantastic blog - just amazing, and I can’t wait to read more!