kaz
Registered User
- Mar 27, 2014
- 19
- 0
Losing and then winning against France 2-0? Sure, I understand some A players were not present but seriously, is the program going in the right direction?
This was virtually a c-team playing early and completely meaningless exhibition games. Beyond that, France has been quite solid in the last few tournaments, beating Switzerland and Russia.
There is absolutely nothing you can garner from these two games about the overall direction the team is heading to.
@ Maverick. Sure other nations are improving but Germany, in my opinion, has been on a downwards trend for quite sometime. Where the number of players, playing in North America has increased, the national program, importantly the senior team, hasn't improved. Losing to France and then winning 2-0 isn't a great accomplishment. What would happen if the German soccer team lost and then barely beat Canada the next day? Just staying in the A group isn't a winning attitude, when will Germany finally wake up and try and win a championship? Changes need to be made. The Swiss made the move. What do you think?
The two games against France are showing a direction. Not qualifying for the olympics is a sign of direction, U-18 getting smoked 9-1 is another sign. Other nations have caught up or have passed Germany. Is it the general opinion in Germany that everything is fine? Ups and downs, sorry, I see more downs. Alot of talent but not enough wins. The only ups Germany will see, are heads looking up, as nations pass by. Finnland at one time wasn't a threat and now?
No, they don't show any direction at all. They are meaningless exhibition games. They had these kind of games before every tournament, and never did they hint at anything. Not at the results of the tournament, nor at some sort of mystical "level" the country is supposed to be on.
Not qualifying for the Olympics was a breakdown during a single tournament. Heck, even when they failed at the WCH and lost the automatic qualification, they still managed to beat Russia for the first time in such a tournament ever.
The U-18 has lost with such results in the past as well. That's nothing out of the ordinary. Add to that, youth teams depend a lot on a single crop. If that year had worse players than others, the results will be really bad.
Which nations have caught up or passed Germany that weren't on about the same level anyway?
People were complaining about how Germany had lost contact to Switzerland, only for Switzerland to have a bad string of years while Germany went on it's best stretch in ages. This is true for pretty much every nation. Sometimes Latvia does great, sometimes they suck. Belarus goes up and down, France had a pretty good run in the past, then vanished and is now back on a pretty good level. Denmark has been good for ten years now, yet they didn't qualify for the Olympics either and looked bad in the last WCH as well. Norway did squat at the Olympics and didn't set the world on fire at the last WCH either, yet had a good year prior to that.
Germany isn't going to get passed by anyone. There will be times where similar nations will have a better run, just like there will be times where they have worse runs. Somehow when another country has a good tournament it's proof that they will leave Germany behind soon. Yet when they fail in the years after, no one mentions that.
Finland wasn't a threat?
Where did you come up with that one?
You just proved what I said all along, everyone has their ups and downs. Ignoring the last 20 years, in which Germany was clearly inferior to Finland, you will be hard pressed to find many years in which Germany was able to compete with Finland.
There was a stretch in the 80s where they were shortly on the same level, with a win and a loss in 1984, a tie in '85, a 1-10 loss in '86 and a win and a tie in '87. Moving towards now, there was only one win in the home-WCH in 1993, every other meeting was a loss.
Between 1965 and 1984, Germany managed a win and a tie in 1978, with every other game against Finland being a loss. At times significantly so (3-13).
Germany managed to win twice in the 50s and then had a 4-1 win, a tie, a 3-9 loss, a tie and a 2-1 win going from 1960 to 1964, with the beginning and the end being Olympic tournaments.
If you look at just the Olympics, you get the following results:
1-5 loss in 1952, a 4-1 and a 2-1 win in 60 and 64, a 1-4 loss in 68, a 3-5 loss in 76, an 7-4 win in 84, 0-8 loss in 88, 1-5 loss in 1992, 1-7 in 94, 0-2 in 2006 and 0-5 in 2010.
Finland has been better at hockey since the 1960s, and the only stretch since then where Germany managed to compete with the Finns for more than a year was between 1984 and 1987, where they managed 2 wins, 2 ties and 2 losses.
Choosing a short peak in performance as proof that Finland wasn't a threat to Germany is absurd. Germany only temporarily managed to get to Finland's level, it wasn't a threat to Finland before or afterwards, apart from a very selective few times.
As a matter of fact, the last few years have been the best stretch against Finland since the 80s, with a 0-1 in 2010, a 4-5 shootout loss in 2011 and a 3-4 overtime loss in 2013. The only other time a game against Finland after 1993 didn't end in a big loss was a 2-2 tie in 2003.
There is a whole lot to complain about when it comes to the DEB. But this excessive whining about how Germany is falling behind everyone else holds no truth whatsoever.
In 1999, Germany eaked by Great Britain, got a close win against Slovenia and got wiped the floor with by Denmark and Kazakhstan, all in what was then the so called "B-WM". If Denmark could beat us back then, yet lose more often than not right now, how can they be on their way to pass us?
The fact is, none of the nations are clearly seperating themselves from the rest. They get their best new talent at different times, they have their good stretches and their bad stretches, but no one gets ahead of the other consistantly.
@ Tronador. I disagree with young german kids playing in sweden or any other country. The DEL or DEB should take a direction where the young players can live, strive in their own country, the other nations do it.
How can a DEL manager get paid 200,000 euro a year and then give a young player 10.000 a year?
@Sanderson. Entry level contracts in the NHL start at a reasonable number, what I am saying, there should be a better pay balance.