Well, a comment from a real newspaper this morning was that there is no reason to be disappointed about this German team. They did what they could and that was not good enough. A bit more luck in one of the games only would have concealed the fact (like it did in the world cup) that the German team since at least ten years is no longer among the top teams in Europe.

If the English coach could pick players from the German team to improve the English team he might take two or three, if the German coach could pick players from the English team to improve the German he'd pick five to seven.

Even back in the times of brilliant Fritz Walter and Beckenbauer, the majority of the German players were from the technical point of view underendowed, too bad for a forth league team in Brazil. What made them strong was the physical aspect and the teamwork. They could outrun most teams they played late in the second half. Which is why we had so many famous comebacks after being down during the game. There is no other team in the world that has an even remotely similar record in World cups of still winning a game or drawing after being 2-0 down.

The physical strength is still there but the other teams, with the technically better players, don't break down anymore in the second half. The physical advantage of German teams has more or less disappeared while the technical skill gap is still there.

The German team will still be able to beat one of the best European teams on a good day, but les frequently.

The number of German players in the German first league is decreasing since many years. Last year, for the first time, we had one team starting the game with 11 players uneligible for the German team. If you look at the 18 teams of the first league in Germany and count the German players that play more than half of the games during the season, you'll find between fifty and sixty. These are the ones Rudi Voeller had to chose from. So if you are a German player playing regularly in your team you have a fair chance to be at least among the 22 nominated.

Often someone has played for Germany who in his home team was only the replacement for a better foreign player.

One particular problem is that there was no good German striker at all since Rudi Voeller himself and Juergen Klinsmann. I see no one to change this soon.

Wolfgang