OlympicsFan

23 hours ago, Noorderling29 said:

Germany’s pretty succesfull in endurance swimming events. Perhaps the German doping authorities have overlooked those athletes?

 

There is of course an alternative explanation to the one you keep hinting at. Possibly the German Rowing Federation is just not very good.

1) German distance swimming is one Training group (Bernd Berkhahn). Their performance doesn’t really have anything to do with the German federation. This is also the training group of Sharon Van Rouwendaal. Also one of the athletes who won a medal at the world championships (Leonie Beck) has been training in Italy (with Paltrinieri) for many years now. Thanks for making it clear that you know nothing about German sport but still somehow are delusional/stupid enough to think that you are qualified to talk about it.

2) Germany used to be great in endurance sports like rowing or speed skating, but then most of the GDR coaches went to nations like GB (track cycling & rowing) or China. Obviously those nations had no problem with hiring former GDR coaches. Surprisingly this gave a huge boost to British rowing and track cycling …

3) Everyone who thinks that you can win medals in endurance sports without doping has to be considered braindead. We all know that countries like China or Russia (combined population of roughly 1.7 billion people -> their talent pool is 100 times bigger than the Dutch talent pool) have zero problems with doping and yet a tiny country like the Netherlands still destroys them in sports like speed skating or rowing …

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 ...

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.

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).

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.

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)

Really interesting split in endurance sports. GB and the Netherlands super strong while New Zealand and Germany fell off. Germany should up their doping program or cut their funding for endurance sports and focus on more technical sports. Trying to compete in endurance sports without doping is like going to a war with nothing but slingshots.

Interesting that the serbian coach is Svetislav Pesic, who coached Germany at the 1993 european championships, when they won their only international gold medal ever.

Are the canadians in here who complain about potentially finishing 4th actually serious or are they trolling?

Canada just had one of the most absurd streaks of luck at the athletics world championships, winning 4 golds out of nowhere and now they are almost instantly back to whining how unlucky they are always finishing 4th?

So after all the discussion whether the US or Canada would be the favorite going into this tournament we get a Serbia vs. Germany final. Almost looks too scripted to be true ...

44 minutes ago, Federer91 said:

So Germany dedicated their full sporting force to become a basketball super power.  Maybe this explains the decline in 15 other sports.

Has to be super tough for you seeing the US getting thrashed by Germany in basketball of all sports. Of course the success in basketball has nothing to do with the decline in other sports, but i am sure that you weren't interested in a serious discussion and just wanted to give a backhanded compliment, so nevermind ...

3 hours ago, EselTheDonkey said:

While that's true, the women, in spite of being qualified, still play at the Qualification Tournament. So I can see, how OlympicFan got the idea, that the men can take part at the Qualifier as well. Even if they don't. It's a very odd rule by the FIBA.

Thanks for clarifying! Weird rule indeed. Still don't see how teams that are already qualified can be allowed to interfer with the qualification of other teams. If the french women feel that team A would be an easier opponent for them at the olympics than team B, they can lose against team A and win against team B to make it more difficult for team B to qualify.

5 hours ago, nenad said:

When I wrote it, Slovenia was playing a tied game. You are just so much misinormed for a person trying it's best to be so smug. 

Some people are more open to learn new things than others. I had no problem admitting that i was "misinormed" when it came to whether Turkey would be able to participate at the OQT or not, but obviously not everyone has that level of maturity. Too bad that you didn't feel like displaying the tremendous amount of "information" you have in the prediction contest. Maybe next time you will put your money where your mouth is?

5 hours ago, George_D said:

France has already qualified for Olympics as a host

I know ...

My point was that they (as far as i know) can still participate in the OQT and therefore could potentially eliminate a team like Latvia, but maybe i was misinformed.

Spain is my clear favorite for the OQT. I also like the chance of Lithuania, if everyone plays. Greece will probably be the 3rd favorite if everyone plays.

2 hours ago, nenad said:

 

Latvia is not a weak team, they may look weak on paper but they played a great tournament, had some big wins without 2 very very important players and they were one shot away from the semifinals. So, that's not a fluke, they're fantasticaly coached and played great basketball. 

 

For starters they are in a far better position to be ahead of France and Turkey in OQT next year, because France is already qualified and Turkey didn't qualify for OQT. And beside that all those other teams except maybe Spain don't have roster better than Latvia. Greece, Italy, Lithuania haven't showed nothing at this tournament to show that they're better than Latvia. 

 

Also, Slovenia could still qualify at this WC. 

Latvia is a weak team. They got thrashed by Canada and in most of their matches against the other good teams they were down by 10+ points and only came back because those teams took it easy. Germany tried to lose today (only explanation for why Schröder was allowed to be a -20 and go 4/26) and Latvia still couldn't win. Too bad that Turkey won't participate, but France can participate, so of course Latvia could finish lower than France. I didn't say that France will qualify over them. Lithuania (if everyone plays), Slovenia, Spain, Greece (if everyone plays) and possibly Italy all have stronger teams. You probably missed it, but Slovenia is already out (which of course was completely expected).

Huge wasted chance for Latvia. Don't really see how such a weak team will finish ahead of Spain/Italy/Greece/Slovenia/France/Turkey/Lithuania next year.

You have to feel for Schröder and the german coach. They would have probably become billionaires if Latvia would have won this game. The only logical explanation for this game is that both Schröder and the german coach bet all their money on a latvian win. Schröder went 4/26 from the field and had a +/- of -20, but for some reason the coach kept playing him. Schröder played 30 minutes, no other german guy played more than 24 minutes. I really don't see how Schröder and the german coach didn't bet on a latvian win. Whenever Germany was up by 10+ points, the german coach brought Schröder back in to completely kill the momentum.

Expected win for Serbia … 

Obviously the US killed Lithuania by losing against them. The same happened to France in 2019. Lithuania fell for their own hype …

5 minutes ago, Benolympique said:

my predictions

 

Would be shocked if Slovenia wins. Apart from Doncic they are really bad. I think without Doncic they would be on the level of Finland/Georgia.

1) 50 % of the top 8 are small eastern european nations (Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Serbia)

2) Spain, France and Australia all missed the elimination games

3) Interesting that Latvia and Lithuania are so good in basketball, but Estonia is completely irrelevant