SHOOTOUT SCHADENFREUDE
When Germany crashed out of the 1998 World Cup – a miserable 3-0 quarter-final defeat to Croatia – the DFB hit the factory reset button. Youth coaching was overhauled, as was the scouting system designed to spot the talent, and it was made compulsory for the 18 top teams in the country to build performance centres. Euro 2000 came too soon for any meaningful impact on the German national team – the defending champions finished bottom of their group – but the wheels were in motion. Das Reboot was born, and a generation of footballers later, Germany would again be world champions in 2014. “At least 10 players who are involved in the national team today we would have never found otherwise,” swooned Dietrich Weise in 2015, a key figure in the earlier revamp. “Think of Toni Kroos. He hails from a small place in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. No one would have looked at him.”
