[OlympicsFan 783]

Both Germany and the Netherlands are trash teams, don’t think that the outcome of this match means anything in terms of medal contenders. Hopefully German tv won’t show much football at the Olympics. If the two German handball teams qualify as well, then this might turn into one of the biggest teams Germany ever sent to the Olympics. Sadly the Netherlands will get their revenge in women’s volleyball. Personally I would have preferred it the other way round (Germany qualifying in women’s volleyball and the Netherlands qualifying in women’s football).

Edited February 28 by OlympicsFan

[OlympicsFan 783]

Women’s basketball and women’s football are almost unwatchable, there is just much more money on the men’s side and therefore the quality difference is bigger than in other sports. In tennis there isn’t a big difference when it comes to prize money and therefore women’s tennis is actually watchable. You probably have to avoid (regularly) watching men’s football/basketball if you want to enjoy women’s football/basketball. Someone who is used to eating in three star restaurants probably won’t enjoy eating at a soup kitchen either.

Edited February 24 by OlympicsFan

[OlympicsFan 783]

On the women’s side Spain can still dominate with their technique. On the men’s side other nations can destroy them with their physicality. The technical level on the women’s side overall is really shockingly bad. Maybe an African team can challenge Spain on the women’s side in some years. I find it interesting that France has a 99 % black team on the men’s side, but on the women’s side it is much more „balanced“. If France could get black women more engaged, they would probably be able to challenge Spain.

[OlympicsFan 783]

For selfish reasons I hope that the German team won’t qualify, otherwise German TV will show hours of their matches instead of showing sports that only have the Olympics to present themselves.

[OlympicsFan 783]

The 100 best male footballers in 2023 according to The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2023/dec/19/the-100-best-male-footballers-in-the-world-2023

 

Some interesting choices. Personally i find it difficult to for example compare a goalkeeper and a striker, i think it would be better to have a top 10 for every position.

[OlympicsFan 783]

Would be interesting to see mixed teams in team sports. 11 players, 5 men, 5 women, for one half the goalkeeper is a man and for the other half the goalkeeper is a woman ...

[OlympicsFan 783]

5 hours ago, Monzanator said:

Germany usually had its star players and they did it their own way Right now they have nobody and I mean nobody. Sane is nowhere near being a world class player in the NT team.

 

Btw, it's really rock bottom if you have to bring up Morocco of all countries to validate whatever Germany should be doing in football

Good god ...

 

You said that the main reason was the lack of quality and i brought up Morroco + Argentina (current world champion) + Croatia (finished 3rd at the world cup) to prove that you can easily contend for the title or at least make the semifinal with less quality than Germany has. When you say something like "Germany usually had its star players ..." i have to assume that you are either trying to troll or just have zero understanding of german football and still somehow feel qualified to give your opinion. Germany pretty much never had the most amount of talent, they always relied on "german mentality" and great teamwork. When they reached the final in 2002 or 3rd place in 2006 they had a bunch of nobodies that outperformed teams with tons of stars (France, Brazil, England, Portugal).

 

The players that started the last world cup final for Argentina played for the following clubs:

2 x Benfica

2 x Atletico

Brighton

Lyon

Aston Villa

Juventus

Tottenham

City (Alvarez was mostly a bench player for City if i remember correctly)

PSG

 

Only 2 of their starting players played for top 10 clubs and one of them (Alvarez) wasn't even a starter (if i remember correctly).

 

The players that started the 3rd place match for Croatia at the last world cup played for the following clubs:

3 x Zagreb

Bayern (Stanisic was lightyears away from being a regular for Bayern)

Leipzig

Tottenham

Rennes

Chelsea

Real

Hoffenheim

Split

 

Only Gvardiol, Modric and Kovacic would have (maybe, not sure if Kovacic would have started over guys like Kimmich/Goretzka/Gündogan) started for Germany.

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by Sindo

[OlympicsFan 783]

1 hour ago, Monzanator said:

Word is Hansi Flick has been fired as NT manager. What an utter disaster this has been but the problem clearly lies with the players available IMO. Germany went ahead of the curve with development in the 2000s which allowed them to cash in for the 2014 World Cup but the world has changed since then and Germany has been clearly left behind.

Germany uses the same system in pretty much all sports and it shows that it isn't really working anymore. Germany doesn't have an infinite amount of talents across all sports and can't continue to assume that there will always be enough talent coming through no matter how bad they are at maximizing the potential of every single athlete. Germany can learn a lot from smaller countries. Also german football has the problem that talents don't get enough playing time at the highest level, instead clubs just buy talents from France or England. Another problem is that Germany focuses too much on physicality and tactics from a very young age and the talents don't get enough touches and therefore doesn't have the same technical level as players from France or England. It isn't a coincidence that the best german player (Musiala) was trained in England for most of his youth. It is also interesting to look at the number of medals that West Germany won and compare it to the number of medals that East Germany won, despite having a much smaller population. Obviously doping was a factor, but sadly after reunification officials from West Germany completely ignored everything that East Germany did right (like having a much better scouting system).

[OlympicsFan 783]

1 minute ago, Monzanator said:

It's a lenghty problem to fix. Apparently Nagelsmann will come to save the day now but in reality the German NT doesn't even the depth available to challenge for major trophies anymore. Leroy Sane hasn't developed into a world class player whatsoever and we all know Werner/Havertz are not there either. It's almost as bad as the late 90s/early 00s when the team was pulled by Ulf Kirsten in his mid 30s and Carsten Jancker (before Miroslav Klose emerged).

Extremely weird take. Argentina just won the world cup with grandpa Messi and a bunch of role players. Morroco and Croatia also did a lot better than Germany despite having inferior talent. Same goes for Italy at the 2020 european championships. Germany still has Ter Stegen, Rüdiger, Kimmich, Goretzka, Gündogan, Musiala, Sane, Gnabry, Havertz (and Wirtz), who are all playing for top 10 clubs. Argentina/Croatia/Morocco in 2022 or Italy at the 2020 european championships all didn't have that.

[OlympicsFan 783]

3 hours ago, Monzanator said:

Word is Hansi Flick has been fired as NT manager. What an utter disaster this has been but the problem clearly lies with the players available IMO. Germany went ahead of the curve with development in the 2000s which allowed them to cash in for the 2014 World Cup but the world has changed since then and Germany has been clearly left behind.

The quality obviously isn't the problem, but maybe the mentality/self-awareness of the top players. It is extremely easy to form a successful national team, but german officials are completely resistant to learning. Germany until 2014 + Morocco/Argentina/Croatia last year + Italy at the 2020 european championships + the german basketball team at the world cup this year have shown what it takes:

Mentality (over quality)

Chemistry

Great coach

 

Germany needs to get an experienced coach and then chose players with the right character and allow them to build chemistry. National teams always have very little time to train/play together, so when a team (like Italy at the 2020 european championships for example) with a great coach allows players to build chemistry, they almost always outperform teams that have superior individual talent, but not as much chemistry. France was lightyears ahead of all other teams in terms of individual talent at the 2022 football world cup, but the other teams made up for it elsewhere.

 

Edit: Two important factors i forgot:

- Players should be in game shape -> You probably shouldn't play guys that don't get a lot of playing time for their clubs

- There are more club games every season, so many of the stars are usually "burned out" by the time the national team competitions start

-> It can be an advantage to select players that didn't play insane amounts of matches for their clubs (clubs that go far in cup competitions)

 

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by OlympicsFan

[OlympicsFan 783]

1 hour ago, hckošice said:

oh come on, it was on the cheek, maybe too longer than it should be, but still just a friendly cheeky kiss. People are so purist nowadays

 

 

but, if he would do that to my niece, I would kill him

 

 

I don't understand the outrage. Do we know that the player didn't want it/have a problem with it? Why do people feel the need to feel insulted on behalf of others? If she has a problem with it, she should express it/speak out herself.

[OlympicsFan 783]

Best goals from the tournament:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtSMXXJq11Q

 

[OlympicsFan 783]

A bit late, but maybe someone still wants to see a short "documentary" (20 minutes) about the tournament.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0EoJ2Pb_PU

 

[OlympicsFan 783]

6 minutes ago, Benolympique said:

i hope germany qualify for paris 2024

Don't see how, would probably need a fluke like in 2022. They have absolutely no concept (coach's fault) and they don't have the right mentality/aren't "independent" (problem of the system/youth academies). They (it is the same with the men) always look like "passengers", they just let it happen and are completely unable to adapt/snap out of it. No accountability.

[OlympicsFan 783]

Interesting comparisons:

Coach of the german women's volleyball team when they qualified for the women's nations league final for the first time: Vital Heynen

Coach of the german men's volleyball team when they last were relevant at world stage (Bronze at 2014 worlds, only ever medal for Germany): Vital Heynen

Coach of the german men's handball team when they last won a medal at world stage (Bronze at the 2016 olympics): Dagur Sigurdsson

Coach of the women's basketball team when they reached their best result in 25 years (6th at this year's european championships): Lisa Thomaidis

[OlympicsFan 783]

If people aren't fired for not performing, then you will never be able to establish the right culture.

[OlympicsFan 783]

Perfect reflection of the state of german sport/society. The problems are the same everywhere. The people that are responsible won't allow anything to change because they would have to give up power/money. Those "bureaucrats" are doing an amazing job of destroying everything from the inside.

[OlympicsFan 783]

Argentina is world champion on the men's side and irrelevant on the women's side. Belgium is also nowhere to be seen (and of course eastern european and most african countries as well).

[OlympicsFan 783]

I know that this won't happen, but:

The women should play on a smaller field and with smaller goals. People don't seem to have a problem with different "standards" in other sports (for example 100/110 m hurdles in athletics with different heights).

[OlympicsFan 783]

16 minutes ago, thepharoah said:

Colombia is leading now 1-0  , France now could regret defeating Brazil 

Why? This german team is trash, both France and Brazil would be the huge favorites.

[OlympicsFan 783]

France (and Germany) missed the U19 European Championships (again). Pretty interesting to see that France is producing the most world class talents by far, yet they perform rather poorly at junior level. It also has to be said that the qualifying groups are extremely „imbalanced“. In one group you have Italy, Belgium AND Germany and then you have one group with Greece/Slovakia/Ireland/Estonia and one group with Poland/Israel/Serbia/Latvia.

Edited March 26, 2023 by OlympicsFan

[OlympicsFan 783]

18 hours ago, thepharoah said:

 

 

Bayern paid a world-record €25m to Leipzig to get Nagelsmann out of contract and gave him a five-year contract worth €8m a season 

1) I think the fee was 20 million.

2) So you think that he will sit out the 3 remaining years of his contract (only way that he will get the „missing“ 24 million of his salary)?

 

Obviously I don’t disagree that it was crazy to give him a 5 year contract despite the fact that he had never coached a big team before. I think the 20 million euro fee only would have been justifiable if there wouldn’t have been other world class coaches available, which in my opinion wasn’t the case. I still remember that I thought that Bayern would sign Ten Hag (who had coached their 2nd team before when Guardiola was there). If they could have gotten Ten Hag without paying a (huge) fee, than that probably would have been a better option.

Edited March 26, 2023 by OlympicsFan

[OlympicsFan 783]

9 hours ago, thepharoah said:

Morocco just defeated Brazil in a friendly game 2-1 , this team would have been a WC Winner candidate for 2026 if they won the bid against USA 

Don’t think so. I think teams like Morocco or Croatia have a ceiling that makes it pretty much impossible to win a World Cup. In the past 70 years or so no really small nations have won the World Cup. Only Germany, Italy, France, Spain, England (although their winning goal was irregular), Brazil, Argentina. Spain (barely beating the Netherlands despite having a once in a lifetime generation) and England only did it once and needed a lot of luck. Nations like Portugal, Belgium or the Netherlands never did it and Argentina had to wait for a very long time. You need the right mentality and the individual quality (which Morocco doesn’t have). Unless something crazy happens, France again will be the favorite, probably followed by Portugal/England/Brazil.

[OlympicsFan 783]

42 minutes ago, thepharoah said:

Lukaku scored Hatrick in Belgium win abroad against Sweden , if only he scored one of the very easy chances against Croatia in WC 

Nice debut for Tedesco. Not a huge fan of him, but another german coach doing great internationally wouldn't be a bad thing. Now we only need Löw to land the job ...

 

Not sure if there were ever that many good/great german(-speaking) coaches: Klopp, Tuchel, Nagelsmann, Flick, Schmidt, Glasner, Ten Hag, Tedesco?, Streich?, Rose?

Schmidt, Ten Hag, Glasner and Xabi Alonso in my opinion have the potential to coach Bayern in the future.

Another interesting coach who is currently flying under the radar is Jan Sierksma, who coaches the AZ Alkmaar Youth League team.

Edited March 24, 2023 by OlympicsFan

[OlympicsFan 783]

34 minutes ago, thepharoah said:

4-0 France , Mbappe really needs to escape from PSG hell,  it didn't matter if he won't be the main star of other teams 

I don't think that there is any team where he wouldn't be the biggest star. He is probably the 3rd biggest star behind only Ronaldo and Messi. I think the problem is that other teams (probably) won't pay him as much and won't be able to pay the transfer fee. Maybe once Messi and Neymar are gone, PSG will be able to finally form a TEAM around him.