Year: 2017

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Europe’s football regulatory body UEFA has revealed the guidelines on the bidding process for the 2024 continental tournament.


The body says that the winning host nation must comply with human rights rules – a first time this is happening.

Germany and Turkey are the only countries seeking to host the tournament as they were the only ones that indicated formal interests before the March deadline. The Germans hosted the 1974 World Cup, the European Championships in 1988 as West Germany before hosting the 2006 World Cup as a nation.

On the other hand, Turkey has never hosted a major football tournament, and this human rights abuse angle does not favour them. Following the coup attempt in Turkey, the president TayyipErdoganhas been accused of a crackdown on civilians by the international community. A state of emergency was declared and almost 47,000 people were arrested over a nine-month period. The nation has blocked access to Wikipedia under national security laws. Continue reading →

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Germany will be taking a decision on the presence of Marco Reus at the Confederations Cup only in the summer.


The Borussia Dortmund striker is regarded as one of the top players for the German national team. However, he had to miss the recent DFB Cup semi-final game against Bayern Munich. The 27-year-old was expected to be nominated for the Confederations Cup squad. However, manager Joachim Loew has claimed that a decision will be taken in the near future. The Dortmund striker was a significant risk in the European championship 2016, as he was unable to play.

Reus was also unable to feature at the World Cup 2014 in Brazil due to an injury. It has been an extremely unlucky period for the striker, who is regarded as one of the top players for the national team. Since making his debut for Germany in 2011, Reus has only been able to feature in 29 games for the national team. Continue reading →

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The signing of Mesut Ozil was supposed to take Arsenal back to the top of the Premier League along with making the club a force in Europe once again. Arsene Wenger’s men paid £42m for the German international to acquire his services from Real Madrid in 2013, but his time at the Emirates Stadium has been underwhelming to say the least.

Ozil struggled for consistency early in his Gunners career and was maligned for his inability to impact games. He started to get to grips with life in the Premier League in the 2014-15 campaign before displaying his best football late in 2015, leading the top flight in assists. Continue reading →

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Germany has to undergo a radical change in terms of the youth coaching methods in order to prepare for the future, according to national team coach Joachim Loew.


He says that the players have been able to reach the full potential of their physicality. Hence, improvement can only come from the mental side of the game. A number of players are unable to take their game to the next level due to lack of understanding of the game.Loew reckons that it is primarily down to coaching methods. After having had first-hand experience about the youth coaching philosophy at Barcelona,Loew says that he is left speechless at seeing the under 10 team perform at such an exceptional level.

Barcelona are widely adjudged to have the best youth setup in the world. Several great players have come from the La Masia youth academy with the likes of Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta amongst the few to remember.Loew says that the football players at Barcelona are trying to play the game like chess – seeing each move 20 or 30 times in advance. Continue reading →

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RB Leipzig have become one of the surprise teams in the Bundesliga this season.


The newly promoted club have emerged as the proper title challengers to giants Bayern Munich. It has been a huge surprise that they have been able to maintain a top three place even until March. The club have made only seven points behind table leaders Bayern Munich, while they have a six-point advantage over third placed Borussia Dortmund. One of the perks of being in such great form is the players getting noticed at a national team levels. It is the case withTimo Werner. He is the top scoring German in the Bundesliga charts with 14 goals to his name.

Sergei Gnabry of Bremen comes second with 10 goals, but Werner has truly caught the attention more thanGnabry.Timo Werner has scored 14 goals 20 appearances for RB Leipzig. Incredibly, Werner will not be turning 21 until the first week of March. He was signed from Stuttgart in the summer for around € 10 million. Continue reading →

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Germany national team coach Joachim Loew believes that former Bayern Munich winger Mario Gotze can make a huge impression on the national team despite his club career not going not as well is planned in the last couple of years.


Gotze made the switch from archrivals Dortmund to Bayern Munich in the summer of 2013 for a whopping transfer fee of £ 35 million. Even though he was initially a huge part of the Pep Guardiola team that dominated the Bundesliga, Gotze soon found himself out of favour as a result of the club’s continued failures in the European stage.

After failing to secure much first-team football towards the end of his Bayern days, Gotze made the return to Dortmund for the € 22 million in the summer. Even then, he has been blighted by injuries and poor form and has featured in only 11 league games this season. Continue reading →

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The former assistant coach Hans-Dieter Flick, 51, has stepped down from his role as sporting director of the German Football Association, according to reports from the European country.


Flick, who is also nicknamed Hansi has been in the game for some time now. He assisted Joachim Low, the national team coach from 2006 until the team claimed their world cup victory in 2014.

At the end of the tournament in Brazil the former Bayern Munich midfielder became the sport director, but the DFB recently confirmed that they had hesitantly accepted his decision to step down two years early.

Flick said that his departure is not coming as a result of any sporting career, but that he is leaving for specific reasons that have to do with his family.

“There are currently no other sporting ambitions, nor are there any problems. The only reason for leaving is my personal desire to concentrate more on my family in the near future,” he said. Continue reading →

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Germany coach Joachim Loew has ruled out the possibility of returning to the Bundesliga once his stint with the national team comes to an end.


The World Cup winning coach’s only experience of managing a club team in Germany is his two-year stint with VFB Stuttgart before the turn of the century. Since then, he has been exclusively involved with the national team; first as an assistant manager to JurgenKlinsmann and then taking over the full-time job in 2006. He is one of the longest serving managers in international football, but he has also brought about success during this period.

Apart from leading Germany to finals of European championships, the national team achieved the crowning glory in the form of the World Cup title in 2014. This is likely to remain his best achievement to late, as Germany have been able to win the honour after several decades. Continue reading →

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After a disappointing Euro 2016 display, during which host nation France managed to knock Germany out in the semi-final stages, the German national side has managed to bounce back from that pain to sit at the top of their qualifying group for World Cup 2018.

Strictly speaking, it is not yet a mathematical certainty that they will qualify from their group, but Continue reading →