Leave Everything on the Pitch

Walter Sperger

Oct 10

5 min read

Walter Sperger · Oct 10, 2026 · 6 min read

And how does a talent actually get there? Thoughts after the first four games under national coach Jürgen Klopp.

Hello, KICK CAREER fans, the international break is behind us, and this time the national team has actually made me curious again. That wasn't always the case. In February 2024, in my Leverkusen post, I wrote about a certain "lifelessness" that I saw in a similar way in the national team, and about the fact that in a team sport the WE comes before the I. Jürgen Klopp has now completed his first four games as national coach. I think that deserves a second look.

Four games, one impression

Sep 24 · away: Netherlands 1:1 (draw)
Sep 27 · Augsburg: Greece 0:1 (defeat)
Oct 1 · Munich: Serbia 2:0 (win)
Oct 4 · Thessaloniki: Greece 0:0 (draw)

Nations League, group stage

On paper, that is a balanced record. After two games the media spoke of the weakest start of any national coach, and the headlines about an impending "negative record" were not long in coming. If you know my post "Media Vomit and Its Potential Toxic Effects", you know what I think of that.

More interesting is what lies behind it: Klopp called up 44 players in two squads, including 16 possible debutants, and even sent captain Joshua Kimmich home in between. He said he did not want to drive eleven men into the ground, he wanted to get to know as many players as possible. I took his credo, paraphrased from several statements, to be this: whoever wears the shirt leaves everything on the pitch. Only then does he have the right to be part of this team.

Belonging instead of attribution

Do you remember the Dilts pyramid from my post "Systemic Coaching Talent-Centered © #3"? At the top level, belonging, it is decided whether a player is part of something bigger. As a negative example I mentioned Thomas Tuchel back then, who denied Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka an identity through the media and through nominations. Klopp, by contrast, ties belonging to attitude and effort, not to names and status.

For me this is the bridge to the resilient relationships that Markus Weise describes in his talk "Hey Trainer, kannst Du auch Coach" ("Hey coach, can you also coach?"). And it leads to a question I already asked in "Das Leibchen mit dem Bundesadler – Lust oder Last" ("The Bib with the Federal Eagle – Pleasure or Burden"). In my view, it is answered not by decree but by belonging.

The way there

Motivation cannot be ordered, it grows, and it grows along the path a talent takes. That path does not necessarily lead through a DFB base and a youth performance center. These careers, in quotation marks, also deserve a look and the question of why they keep being possible. Two names show this particularly vividly for me:

With Hector, I find the surroundings almost more exciting than the career. He did his voluntary social year at his home club, earned his C license there, studied business administration on the side, and did not want to leave his friends in the lurch in the middle of the season when Cologne came calling early. Environment, values, belonging: those are levels of the Dilts pyramid, long before tactics or technique come into play.

And with Höler, as a Bayern fan I note with a wink that in one season he scored against us in both the first and the second leg. The neutral reader may forgive me that these lines, too, are sometimes written in red-and-white ink.

What research says

Two names are of course no proof. So here is a look at the scientific work:

Güllich (2014): Today's Bundesliga players emerged more from repeated selection and de-selection in childhood and youth than from early selection and long, uninterrupted support. Entry into the support programs is spread across all age groups.
Hornig, Aust & Güllich (2016): 52 Bundesliga professionals, including 18 senior internationals, were compared with 50 amateur players. Over their careers the professionals had only moderate amounts of organized football training.
Güllich (2019), women's football: National team players had less football training overall up to age 18, but more self-organized play and more training in other sports than their Bundesliga counterparts.
Journal of Sports Sciences (2017): Among 44 German youth players aged 11 to 13, those who played more unorganized football and trained other sports in an organized way improved more, not those with more organized football training.
Güllich, Macnamara & Hambrick: The meta-analysis of 51 studies with 6,096 athletes shows: later world-class athletes had more multi-sport practice in their youth, started their main sport later and progressed more slowly at first.

And that is the decisive point for me. Organizations choose between quick junior success and long-term success at senior age. A performance center that has to be measured by results and league tables has a natural incentive for the first option.

The picture is not entirely uniform, though. A Norwegian study found no significant differences between professionals and non-professionals in the amount of other sports, and the meta-analysis sees no notable effect for free play taken on its own. These studies therefore do not serve as evidence against youth performance centers. But they are a clear indication that the "sterile" approach, that is, almost only football and school and nothing else in youth, does not have to be the best way.

The DFB also sees a need for action. Hannes Wolf, Director of Youth, Training and Development, said in summer 2025, roughly, that the DFB is not good enough and must get better. According to Sportschau, the share of playing time of domestic U21 players in the Bundesliga was 4.9 percent, in Spain's La Liga 8.8 and in France's Ligue 1 11.

What I take away from this

Whether Klopp will bring success back with this line remains to be seen. In November, the games in Serbia and against the Netherlands continue, then with a more compact squad. The direction is right, in my opinion, for once.

With clarity, focus and composure to optimal development

Until then! Stay healthy and always a good ball!

Sources

Güllich, A. (2014): Selection, de-selection and progression in German football talent promotion. European Journal of Sport Science.
Hornig, M., Aust, F. & Güllich, A. (2016): Practice and play in the development of German top-level professional football players. European Journal of Sport Science, 16(1), 96–105.
Güllich, A. (2019): "Macro-structure" of developmental participation histories and "micro-structure" of practice of German female world-class and national-class football players. Journal of Sports Sciences.
Sport activities differentiating match-play improvement in elite youth footballers – a 2-year longitudinal study. Journal of Sports Sciences (2017).
Güllich, A., Macnamara, B. N. & Hambrick, D. Z.: What makes a champion? Early multidisciplinary practice, not early specialization, predicts world-class performance. Perspectives on Psychological Science.
From childhood to senior professional football: elite youth players' engagement in non-football activities. Journal of Sports Sciences (2014).
Klopp start: ZDFheute, Berliner Zeitung, bundesliga.com, DFB
Jonas Hector: bundesliga.com, ligainsider.de, echo24.de, derstandard.at
Lucas Höler: kicker, bundesliga.com, goal.com
Permeability into the Bundesliga: sportschau.de