DFB academy boss Haupt warns
“We have completely lost touch internationally”
September 23, 2023, 3:14 p.m
Tobias Haupt heads the German Football Association’s academy. For about five years. Nothing progressed during this time. Now he finds powerful words. He sees German football in a gigantic crisis.
Academy boss Tobias Haupt sees a bleak future for German football. “We are in one of the biggest crises in history,” the DFB director told “Bild”: “It must be clear to us: we have completely lost touch internationally!” The problems were “partially” recognized. But: “Central measures that have been on the table for years are not being implemented. And above all: essential decisions that are necessary for the future of German football have been put on the back burner for years. This is how the German can Football will not be successful in the future.”
The 39-year-old, who has been head of the new academy since 2018, sees glaring problems everywhere. “Since the 2014 World Cup title, we have been resting on past successes,” he said. The speed of implementation of the reforms is far too slow to be able to catch up with international competition. The connection to France, England or other nations would be “completely lost”. In detail, Haupt complained that the national teams were “no longer world class” for a long time. “The playing times of our U21 national players are far too short. The market values of our U-national players are far behind the international average.”
Since 2014 it has only been going in one direction
Compared to the other top five nations, Germany “is making the worst use of the talent pool. Spain, for example, has produced 45 percent more top players than Germany since 2009,” he analyzed and concluded: “We don’t have enough breadth at the top. ” The DFB’s flagship team, the men’s national team, has recorded declining results in all tournaments since winning the 2014 World Cup. With the exception of the Confederations Cup title in 2017, the DFB team continues to lag behind the international elite. At the World Championships in Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022, the selection failed in the preliminary round.
While it made it to the semi-finals of the European Championship in 2016, the national team, which was then coached by Joachim Löw, was eliminated in the round of 16 against England in 2021. Löw was followed by national coach Hansi Flick, who was fired this month after a year-long dry spell. With Jamal Musiala, the DFB’s greatest hope at the moment was trained in England, and Serge Gnabry and Leroy Sané also spent parts of their training in England. Gnabry was trained at Arsenal from the age of 16 and Sané, who came from the Schalke academy, went to Pep Guardiola and Manchester City at a young age.