European Champions under age 17, under age 19 and now under age 21. A feat never accomplished before by any nation to hold all three titles at the same time. German soccer will be a Power Player years to come

and they'll continue to choke when it comes to the world cup

You mean the second most successful team in the history of the World Cup?

If you are going by titles, the former West Germany only has 3 which is less than Brazil and Italy.

It's rather meaningless feat when it comes to full international football. The last team to have their underage teams grow into big time players where Portugal and even they didn't win anything.

Not to say they won't always be the big movers but German football will never be a true powerhouse of Europe again while the Bundesliga is financially crippled compared to the big 3 (La Liga, Serie A, Premiership).

First of all the Bundesliga is the only finanical healthy one in Europe. Spain's clubs are completely debt-ridden, so are Italy's. Secondly how goos the national leagues are means nothing towards international titles. Otherwise England would have won every European and World title

All the debt is managable at the clubs affected, indeed to say all La Liga clubs are debt ridden is erroneous, the only club with any real finance issues is Valencia. No Italian club is in any real trouble in regards to finance. You are essentially parroting the Platini line in regards to club finances although his reasoning only comes from his amusing anti-english league outlook. As for the league being linked to a countries national strength its quite relevent since the vast Majority of German players stay domestic (Ballack is the only one I can think of that plays outside). The english league has only enjoyed continental supremacy from a 8 year period in the late 70s early 80s and the past 4/5 years so to blankly say they would have swept national football is again false. The only people who ever make that mistake is the British tabloid media.

I actually watched the under 21 final and found the German team to be rather agricultural in their style of play, hardly the team of future dominance for me, especially since the English opponent's where shockingly weak with only the manic running around of Walcott even approaching competent

Raaaaaaapid

Should be - fear the english soccer empire, levy.

I'm talking about national teams, npot club football

so am i

Then you're delusional. Just because you played a good qualifying group for once doesn't mean you're actually gonna be able to survive a tournament

delusional? im just calling it like it is. Capello's got the boys playing well, we've got a better chance than germany i think. Germany are good for the quarter finals though.

Yay! I'll be supporting the Germans in 2010 again.

This thread reminds me why Levy knows sweet fa about football.

However to not be negative the German's qualified for the World Cup this week and the display against Russia was very effective. Men like Kolse, Ballack and Co are always effective at international level.

Us Irish will need to play in the play off's (prays we get Greece not France or Portugal)

Beating Russia twice is no small feat. Especially on home soil. So there's nothing to contradict my statement yet

Ahem! We did beat Russia twice (4-1 and 3-0, granted, both times on neutral soil) to win the Euro 2008. So fear the Spanish Empire.

spain are probably the favorites at this point along with brazil, but unfortunately their game is very boring and has no character, it is robot football with cogwheel players like xavi and iniesta who can't be liked and rooted for or hated and rooted against because all they do is play their thing and nothing else; it is very technical and precise, but lacks any individual movement and playing and emotion, it's more like watching a game from the ea sports fifa series played by a good player, very effective and successful, impressive for a little while, but boring very quickly because the human element is missing almost completely. but i have to say this problem is not only applying to spain it is a general problem nowadays, just some teams have good ea sports fifa players controlling them, others have bad ones, but the principle is general.

by the way, levy, what do you think about maradona's outrage at the press conference?

wtf are you talking about?

about system football and the characterless players that are bred to perform it. i don't know if it plagues england as much yet, because i don't really watch the premier league, but it has certainly infested germany and other leagues and national teams as well, as described above.

This thread is old as hell

I love when people call someone an idiot for their prediction and then they are proven wrong. Great job Levy!

Thanks...

And again European under 19 Champion. The Youth development program really works...

Youth shmooth