German Soccer

Germany had many amateur and semi-professional soccer clubs long before they had a national team of their own. These teams used to play in the regional championships. Some of the players from the same teams were selected, although unofficially, for the German national team in the beginning of the 20th century. However, there was no proper system which resulted in constant defeats of the German team at the hand of other more organized European ones. Finally a team was made official in 1908; however, there was still a dearth of professionalism that can be seen in the attitude and the game of the players. It can be realized with the help of the result of a match between English and Germans. The English defeated the Germans 9-0.

The German soccer team has the longest and the most difficult name of all the teams. In German the soccer team is called ‘Die Deutsche Futbalnationalmannschaft’. Though the German soccer team was established quite later than that of England and Scotland, still it is one of the oldest around along with these two, as compare to the rest of the Europeans and South American teams.

Germans did not take part in the 1930 World Cup due to its very week economic conditions and the political turmoil the country was going through after the World War I. But they entered the world of international soccer with a bang when they won a bronze medal in the 1934 World Cup. Germany could not repeat its performance in 1938 World Cup held in France because Hitler already recruited most of the athletes in the German army. After the World War II the World Cup competitions were postponed till 1950. Germany was not allowed to take part in the next World Cup held on Brazil.

The next World Cup held in Switzerland found a completely different and brutally hungry German team for the title, which they won easily. The German national team could not demonstrate their performance in the 1958 and 1962 World Cups where they left quite early, however; they reached the final of the 1966 World Cup, where they came out as the runner ups, losing to the arch rivals England, who were playing on their home ground. Though it came as a shock to the Germans, they did not lose heart, and showed equally strong game in the world cup of 1970, in which they managed to secure the third place.

German soccer players have shown some outstanding performances in its entire history. Franz Beckenbauer and Luther Mathews are considered as two of the legendry players of the German soccer. Both of them were the defenders. Among the legendry strikers are Klinsmann, Michael Ballack, and Muller are the most famous ones. The famous German soccer players also include the goal keepers like Oliver Kahn. He played a very important role in German qualification for the final of the 2002 World Cup. His fierceness and existence of guts in goal, survived with his firm structure made him a goalkeeper no attacker will readily involve in a clash with.

In the wake of the political events that engulfed German nation in the early part of the 20th century really made the German soccer suffer a lot. Germany was ripped a part into West and East Germany. The West Germany had the best team in Europe, whereas, the East Germans were good enough to win the gold medal in the 1976 Olympics, finally leading to the decision to unite them both to make a deadly combination.