Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Power shifting toward Germany
Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund wins show Spain has some company
If there are lessons to be learned from last week’s Champions League semifinals, they might not be fully understood until next summer’s World Cup. But Vicente del Bosque, consider yourself warned.
Because while the losses of Barcelona and RealMadrid to German giants Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund don’t necessarily mark the end of Spanish soccer dominance, they do suggest an antidote has been found.
Over the last five years, Spain has enjoyed an unprecedented run of success, with Barcelona capturing two European club championships while del Bosque’s national team haswon two Euros and aWorld Cup. And for the most part that success has been the product of a uniquely Spanish style of play that relies on short, precise passes and an overwhelming edge in possession.
That all unraveled in the final four of the Champions League when the German teams— most notably Bayern— decided to stand and fight. Rather than engaging in a game of keep-away it couldn’t win, Bayern played two robust, physical games in which it lost the possession battle by a sizable margin but won a stunningly one-sided result over Lionel Messi-less Barcelona, shutting out Europe’s third-highest-scoring team in consecutive games while scoring seven times.
Dortmund was less dominant in its semifinal victory, turning defensive in the second leg and hanging on for a 4-3 aggregate victory that proved to be so tense, club chairman HansJoachim Watzke locked himself in a stadium bathroom so he wouldn’t have towatch the final minutes of the second match.
“I had to give up due to heart problems,” the 53-year-old Watzke said. “I covered my ears and looked at my watch. I had all kinds of thoughts going through my head.”
For Dortmund, the trip to London’s Wembley Stadium for theMay 25 title match will mark its first appearance in a Champions League final since 1997. Bayern will be returning for the third time in four years, having lost to Chelsea last year and to Inter Milan in 2010.
But this will be the first time two German clubs have squared off in the final match, and that points to a much bigger trend that could have huge ramifications next summer in Brazil.
After a horrific showing in the 2000 Euros, which Germany entered as the defending champion but exited after the group stage without winning a game, the country’s national federation ordered Bundesliga clubs to begin investing in youth academies. And though the early results were mixed— Germany made the final of the 2002World Cup but failed to a win a match in the 2004 Euros— the federation didn’t waver, spending nearly $1 billion on the development of young players in the last 12 years.
That investment is beginning to pay off. Sixteen of the 34 players called up to the national team in the last year took part in the Champions League semifinals, including midfielders Sami Khedira and Mesut Ozil, who play for RealMadrid. And18 of the 34 national team players— including 20-year-old Dortmund midfielder Mario Goetze and Schalke teenager Julian Draxler — are younger than 25, meaning they’ve spent more than half their lives training under the new academy system.
But Germany’s ascension— which is built around a playing philosophy perhaps best described as a steady, blue-collar professionalism— doesn’t necessarily mean Spanish soccer is in decline. The most recent FIFA First XI, soccer’s version of an all-world team, was made up entirely of players from Spain’s La Liga, including six members of the Spanish national team. No German players were selected.
And itwas less than a year ago that Spain became the first team to win three consecutive major international tournaments by dismantling Italy in the Euro final.
Clearly dynasties don’t last long in international soccer. Hungary in the 1950s, Brazil in the ’60s, the European domination of the ’70s and ’80s— all eventually faded, giving way to an era of relative parity in which just one country has appeared in more than one World Cup or Euro final since 2001.
That country is Spain, whose dominance is now being threatened in both style and substance. The question now is will it wither or withstand that challenge?