Marius Wolf arrived late in the German national team.
Bild: picture alliance/dpa
Every year, almost every third talent from a football academy is exchanged. Trainers are often wrong. The number of errors could be reduced with “bio-banding”. But the DFB blocked.
AA photo of four soccer boys appeared on the screen. They posed happily exhausted after a talent screening by the German Football Association (DFB). The only thing that didn’t really work was putting your arms around your shoulders. The smallest’s shoulder reached up to the belly of the largest. Marcel Hartel measured 1.52 meters, Aaron Seydel 1.90 meters. They were the same age, 14 years.
The photo that Marc Dommer threw on the screen during his presentation at the management conference of the German football academies made it clear what the Werder Bremen training manager wanted to say. Comparing fourteen-year-olds with fourteen-year-olds in sport often makes no sense. “During puberty, growth diverges extremely,” says Dommer. “If we only select the talents we want to promote based on their current performance, we are often wrong. Which happens very often in football.”