Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt was the team doctor of FC Bayern Munich for almost four decades. In April 2015 Bayern lost the first leg of a Champions League quarter-final 1–3 in Porto. Afterwards the medical department was blamed as mainly responsible for the defeat. Müller-Wohlfahrt and his colleagues resigned, saying the relationship of trust had been lastingly damaged. He later recalled the accusation that he was to blame for the defeat. “Das ist doch absurd!” That is absurd. “Das konnte ich nicht akzeptieren.” I could not accept that. He returned to the club later and left for good in 2020.
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Pilot, Test, Then Permanent
The German Football League took part early in the international trials of the video assistant referee. In the 2016/17 season it tested the system offline at three Bundesliga matches per round. In the next season it was used live in all nine matches of each round. In March 2018 the 18 Bundesliga clubs decided, with one abstention, to keep the video assistant permanently. They named the wish for more sporting fairness as the reason. According to the league, by the 26th round of that season the video assistant had prevented 49 clear wrong decisions in 68 interventions.
The Studs of Bern
On 4 July 1954 West Germany beat Hungary 3–2 in the World Cup final in Bern, the Wunder von Bern, the miracle of Bern. Adolf Dassler, the founder of Adidas, had equipped the team with boots with screw-in studs. At half-time the studs were changed for the wet pitch, and the story became part of the legend. Dassler had filed for a utility model in November 1952. Others had come earlier. Ludwig Wacker of Zweibrücken received a patent for studs in 1925, and a master shoemaker in Bremen received one in 1949. Hannover 96 wore screw-in studs in the German championship final in May 1954. German Wikipedia adds about the World Cup final: Die tatsächliche Wirkung kann anhand fehlender Daten nicht zweifelsfrei geklärt werden. (The actual effect cannot be determined beyond doubt for lack of data.)
Gymnastics Written Down
On 19 June 1811 Friedrich Ludwig Jahn began public gymnastics in Berlin. This counts as the birth of the German gymnastics movement, Turnen. Jahn introduced many pieces of apparatus, among them the horizontal bar and the parallel bars. In 1816 he published, with Ernst Eiselen, Die deutsche Turnkunst, zur Einrichtung der Turnplätze dargestellt, German gymnastics, set out for the establishment of gymnastics grounds. According to German Wikipedia, the book came from practice for practice. It contains a model description of a gymnastics ground and its apparatus, the exercises, and the order and laws of gymnastics, down to the conduct and dress of gymnasts and teachers.
Children’s Football Without League Tables
The German Football Association, the DFB, changed the game for its youngest players. In the youngest age groups there are no more championship tables. Children play in small teams at festivals. The new formats were first tested in a pilot phase over two years. In January 2022 the DFB’s youth assembly confirmed the recommendation of its youth committee, and on 11 March 2022 the association’s general assembly adopted it. In September 2023 Hans-Joachim Watzke, a vice-president of the DFB, called the plans unfassbar, unbelievable, and announced a “reform of the reform”. DFB officials defended the decision. Since the 2024/25 season, the new rules have been binding throughout Germany.
Firing the Coach
In 2011, the University of Münster announced a study by the physicist Andreas Heuer and the sport psychologist Bernd Strauß of coaches dismissed during the season. They examined 46 Bundesliga seasons, from 1963 to 2008/09, with 361 dismissals. At the time of dismissal, the teams were typically six points below expectation. The researchers could not show any effect of the dismissal on the team’s later results.
Munich 1972, Designed Throughout
In 1966, the designer Otl Aicher was asked to lead the design of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. His guidelines covered everything von der Kleidung für Mitarbeitende über Möbel bis hin zu den Eintrittskarten, from the clothing of the staff to the furniture to the tickets. Red, gold and black were not allowed. His pictograms for the sports are still used around the world. The dachshund Waldi was the first Olympic mascot of all.
Then We Will Camp
For the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the German national team stayed at Campo Bahia, a resort near Santa Cruz Cabrália that a Munich businessman built as the team’s base. It was due to be ready by March 2014. A few days before the team arrived on 8 June, the furniture was still held in customs, the showers did not work, and there were occasional power cuts. The team manager, Oliver Bierhoff, later recalled the reaction of the goalkeeper Manuel Neuer: Ist doch kein Problem, Oliver, dann zelten wir. (No problem, Oliver, then we will camp.) Germany won the tournament.
A License for Next Season
Every German professional football club must pass a licensing or admission procedure before each season. In the third division, the procedure checks the club’s economic and technical-organizational capacity. Clubs from the regional leagues and the third division normally file their documents by 1 March. In the third division, a club whose personnel costs for the playing operation reach 80 percent of its total revenue must deposit an additional liquidity reserve of one million euros. On 31 March 2020, because of the pandemic, the German Football League decided to waive the liquidity check for the 2020/21 license. It also cut the penalty for insolvency from nine points to three. The regular procedure was to return for the 2021/22 season.
The Match Plan
German football coaches erstellen einen Matchplan, they draw up a match plan for each game. The sports writer Christoph Biermann used the word as the title of his 2018 book, Matchplan. Die neue Fußballmatrix. In 2021, a column in the weekly Der Freitag teased the coaches. When journalists press them about their plan, the column said, they explain it in a way that nobody is likely to understand.