The German minifootball Association (DKFV) has just founded an U21-team as a youth base for their national team and they were soon in action, following an invitation by the Czech Republic for a friendly match last Saturday in Prague.
“Our Czech friends, who´s U21-Team exists for nearly one year already, have invited us many times to play against them with a German U21. We took this as an occasion to found a youth team so to give young talents the opportunity to present themselves”, explains Christoph Koechy, president of DKFV.
Marc Mueller, head coach of the German national team as well as of the newly founded U21 adds: “Every championship shows a rising level with more tempo on the pitch. This, of course, makes the change from a big pitch to a small one continuously more difficult for the players. Especially young players will have their problems to establish themselves in the A-squad in the future. Therefore an U21 is an ideal intermediate step to make experiences on international level”.
To put this plan into practice, the German delegation scouted more than 85 players, 11 of them finally started their journey to Prague. They were soon down to work with a hard training session followed by a meal together. Saturday morning started with another training session, in which the players already left the impression that it definitely was the right choice to start the project U21 in Germany.
Although the friendly match against the Czech team in Milovice that evening ended with a 0:4 loss, Mueller was very pleased by the performance of his team: “We had a few late drop outs and furthermore had not played match yet not to mention the only two training sessions we had before this match. After such a short time together, our performance against the Czechs, which already play together for a year now, was very remarkable. The guys presented themselves really good although some of them had a few problems with the higher tempo. All in all we can nevertheless be very satisfied with the past weekend”.
One of the main aims of the DKFV in 2016 is to have more trainings and matches with this newly founded team. President Koechy is pretty optimistic to achieve this goal and points out the advantages for every participant: “We will now try to establish this Under 21 and at the end there will be a surplus for everyone: We develop our players for the A-squad, the youngsters can approve themselves for bigger tasks and at the same time gain new experiences, which also help them in their clubs. In the end everyone is a winner.”