Fighting Germans Apparently Ready for Another Run
The Germans are fighting among themselves again, and that’s bad news for the rest of the soccer world.
Oliver Bierhoff, striker and team captain, started it, lashing out at Germany’s coach a couple of weeks ago.
“Certainly, Rudi Voeller doesn’t stand behind his captain in the way [former coach] Berti Vogts did for Juergen Klinsmann,” Bierhoff told Kicker magazine. “It would be great if he did, but I have to fight for this kind of trust.”
A day or two later, former captain Lothar Matthaeus criticized the quality of players on the national team.
“We lack real leaders,” Matthaeus told Sport-Bild. “With the exception of Stefan Effenberg, there are no real stars in the Bundesliga.”
Then it was Christian Ziege’s turn.
“Long-term, it’s just not enough for me to sit on the bench,” the defender said. “I’ll keep an eye on the situation for the time being, but not until the World Cup in 2002.”
Such comments should alert the teams Germany might face in Japan and South Korea next year. Whenever infighting starts in the German camp, it’s a signal that the team is going to make a serious run at another world championship.
That Germany will qualify for the 2002 World Cup no longer seems in doubt. In the last eight days, the Germans have scored a 2-1 home victory over Albania and demolished Greece, 4-2, in Athens to keep their unbeaten record intact after four qualifying games.
No other European team is unbeaten and untied in the qualifying competition.
The recent results brought Voeller’s record as coach to 5-2, the only setbacks being in exhibitions.
Voeller gradually is reviving Germany after its dismal performance under then-coach Erich Ribbeck at the European Championship last year, when it was ousted in the first round without having won a game.
At the time, former star Franz Beckenbauer said it would be a long while before Germany, a World Cup winner in 1954, 1974 and 1990, regained its place among the sport’s elite.
“The best in the world are 10 years ahead of us,” he said. “Twenty years ago, the French copied us. Now they’ve overtaken us and we’re having to catch up.”
Voeller believes his team is catching up faster than expected, and not least because of the performances of its newfound playmaker, 21-year-old Sebastian Deisler, and the emergence of 22-year-old striker Miroslav Klose.
Only a year ago, German fans were bemoaning the lack of young talent. Things are looking a lot better and Voeller still has another year to shape a new-look team for the World Cup in June 2002.
On Thursday, the German soccer federation rewarded his work by signing him to a contract that carries through next year’s tournament.
Voeller, 40, was a key player on Germany’s 1990 World Cup-winning team and would like nothing better than to emulate Beckenbauer and win the World Cup as both a player and coach.
NORWEGIAN WOULDN’T
If Germany’s fortunes are on the rise, Norway’s have plummeted.
Norway played in the 1994 and ’98 World Cups, but its chances of making it to three consecutive tournaments have all but disappeared after consecutive losses to Poland at home and Belarus on the road.
The latest defeat, last Wednesday, signaled the end, according to Coach Nils Johan Semb.
“Victory would have given us a chance of going to the finals, but now we have lost all hope,” he said.
BRAZILIAN SHAME
Before qualifying play began last year for Japan/South Korea 2002, Brazil had lost only once in World Cup qualifying competition. That’s once in 70 years.
In the last year, however, Brazil has been defeated three times, by Paraguay, Chile and, in the latest debacle, Ecuador.
The shocking 1-0 defeat at Atahualpa Stadium in Quito, on a goal by Mexico-based striker Agustin Delgado, left Brazilian newspapers lamenting the decline of the four-time world champion.
Noting that Brazil now has lost to every other South American country but one, the sports newspaper Lance featured a headline that said simply, “Only Venezuela Left.”
Brazil is the only team in the world to have played in every World Cup, and it is unlikely to miss the next, but Coach Emerson Leao will have to turn an underachieving team into a contender.
“Some [players] didn’t produce everything they are capable of,” he said after the loss to Ecuador, a first for Brazil. “Some didn’t produce 50% of what they are capable of.”
Emerson was especially displeased with the performance of Rivaldo, whose thoughts might have been elsewhere.
The Barcelona midfielder’s name has been linked to both AC Milan and Manchester United in recent days and a move became more probable Friday when Barcelona agreed to purchase Juan Roman Riquelme from Boca Juniors of Argentina for a reported $25.75 million.
FRANCE COMES UNDONE
Ecuador was not the only team to score a memorable victory in the last week. Spain managed to defeat France, which it had not done in two decades.
The 2-1 victory in Valencia over the reigning world and European champion not only ended that dismal streak but also snapped France’s 10-game unbeaten run.
Goals by Ivan Helguera and Fernando Morientes were enough to give the Spaniards a morale-lifting victory over the team that had ousted them from the quarterfinals of last year’s European Championship.
“This wasn’t a case of revenge,” Spain’s coach, Jose Antonio Camacho, said. “That will come in the knockout rounds of a World Cup or European Championship. But in footballing terms, we’ve shown that we’re at the same level as them or any other side.”
French Coach Roger Lemerre shrugged off the defeat.
“For me, the loss against Spain was no more or less significant than the 5-0 win over Japan [the previous Saturday],” he said.
