Compare that to the SFAI attitude expressed in the Miguel Delaney blog on another thread.
The richest and most populous (after Russia) country in Europe could finally get its act together, go around and copy what others were doing and by sheer weight of an enormous player population, manage to find a few gems in amongst the weeds.
And it took them 10 or 12 years. I suppose that's not bad going for a country that once produced the Trabant, Wartburg and Opel Kadett.
I think the fact that they kept the elite level of club football integrated into the whole system and sympathetic to the quest for a successful national team is a bigger part of the picture. Compare this to England which has had an unprecedented economic boom in football yet the FA is weighed down with the cost of financing its stadium and grassroots football has third world facilities.
England are a dysfunctional example. Germany copied what other countries were doing .. that worked, they didn't invent anything, sheer weight of numbers means they can churn out a stronger squad than say Holland. Integration was not a novel idea. And they were smart enough not to bother with a national stadium, but did it take a genius to work that one out, considering there were all these huge stadiums scattered around Germany?
I'm not saying Germany is a wondrous example of man's ingenuity but all I'm saying is that if you work on the assumption that population and popularity of football is a necessary but insufficient condition to win things, the remaining necessary ingredients include organisational / institutional efficiency.
The corollary (?) is that institutional efficiency is by itself also a necessary but insufficient ingredient. A country like Ireland has neither but a country like, say, Croatia I suspect has the latter - though I don't really know. Germany has both, Spain has population and an odd but respectable institutional structure. England, Italy and Brazil have population but are institutionally dysfunctional. I don't know about Argentina or Russia so much, though I expect the latter is institutionally weak. Poland has population but is a shambles institutionally, or so I'm led to believe. Holland has the institutional strength and just about enough of a population to be very competitive, but not enough to be winners.
The USA has the population, growing popularity plus some strong institutional arrangements, notwithstanding the observation that working class kids are priced out of football, a major weakness. One to look out for I think. Japan might be too.
France appeared to have both ingredients for a while.
No?
Edit: Iceland clearly has no great population but would appear to have sound organisational arrangements. Or is their relative success down to something else?
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 10/10/2014 at 8:14 PM.
Sure geysir will tell us otherwise, but part of Island's recent improvement, is probably 'cyclical', as in they happen to have a crop of decent players right now.
In 20 years time they'll probably be rubbish again and so it continues.
What's the point AB? In 20 years you will be 20 years closer to death, so why bother?Originally Posted by ArdeeBhoy
Why bother trying to explore the limits of how good you can be or how good a structure of football can be? why bother if it's all cyclical, ignoring the glaring obvious fact that in times gone by there were just a few little ripples now and again.
And now that there is a solid structure in place in iceland, not just for this generation of footballers but also for the next coming through, you choose to ignore the 15 years of graft to get to this stage, dismiss it all outright, because it's probably all cyclical?
I think you're probably talking thro' yer hole, yet again
If you say so, but you do know what I mean.
And if we're both still here in 20 years time, we'll see who's right? And who was talking through their, er, hole.
Anyway, back in the real world...
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/f...a-9788702.html
AB is unwittingly coming across as an arch economic libertarian. Remove the state from economic life, it will steal your freedom. The free market will deliver all our needs and wants as long as individuals are left free to choose their own actions in the rational pursuit of utility. Planning is communism.
I suspect his political views are rather different!
I like the La Perla ad in the right hand corner of that web page. I'm glad I didn't see that before going to bed.
Result - Scotland 1-0 Georgia. Flicked over here and there, looked a pretty nervous win. Georgia were in Scottish territory the majority of the times I put it on. An own goal in the first half settled it, made by Maloney I think. Brown and Morrisson terrific in the deep lying midfield positions according to commentator. Ibrox has seen bigger crowds in the Scottish Division 3.
Poland v Germany live on ITV4.
Scotland looked subdued, but we really need a draw from their match on Weds, though may depend on how much of a beating Polska take from Deutschland?
I don't think this is a foregone conclusion at all. I'd be happy with any kind of German win. I suppose in relation to Poland v Scotland then, anything bar a Scotland win would be okay, a draw ideal alright.
It is if you look at Polska's recent record and their overall one v.Deutschland. Germany not at full strength but they are expecting to win and the Poles to not.
Though a closer game than we might expect?
Poland have never beaten them, in eighteen attempts. They're set up pretty defensively and limiting the Germans so far but early days. That high line by Germany is baffling, hope it continues for Tuesday.
I find it impossible to be hoping for a Germany win, regardless of the beneficial effect of Poland not gaining a point, would have for us.
It won't matter a jot if we select Walters and Keane for the next game.
germans not playing that high line tonight so far anyway. germans are all over them few good chances missed
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