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a écrit le 31 juillet 2013 à 18h13 In part, that was because people had begun to take Finke and Freiburg for granted. The small, smart and loveable club had joined the establishment, at least when compared to the even smaller newcomers like Ulm, Unterhaching, Cottbus or Mainz who now took turns catching the imagination. By 2002, the Freiburg Way had become so accepted that very few eyebrows were raised when Finke kept his job despite a second relegation. (Of course his team came straight back.) Ditto when he remained at the helm after Freiburg went down a third time, in 2005. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung referred to this as the 'sacrosanct serenity' the club had turned into a trademark. You don't panic, you keep the ball on the ground, and Volker Finke will oversee it all until judgement day.
Which, at last, leads us to what could have become the finest story of the 2006-07 season.
Freiburg started this campaign in catastrophic fashion. On December 11, they were beaten at home 4-0 by Karlsruhe and found themselves level on points with the team in 16th place. Almost half of the season was over, Freiburg were staring relegation to the third division in the face. Two days later, the club sent out a dazzling press release.
Which, at last, leads us to what could have become the finest story of the 2006-07 season.
Freiburg started this campaign in catastrophic fashion. On December 11, they were beaten at home 4-0 by Karlsruhe and found themselves level on points with the team in 16th place. Almost half of the season was over, Freiburg were staring relegation to the third division in the face. Two days later, the club sent out a dazzling press release.
a écrit le 31 juillet 2013 à 18h12 But as early as 1997, there were young managers such as Armin Veh at Fürth, Ralf Rangnick at Ulm or Joachim Löw at Stuttgart who were following in Finke's footsteps. And so Freiburg had to cast the net wider as they attempted to replace no less than sixteen players who had left when the club got relegated.
Finke and his scouts looked for and found players, often in pairs, in places such as Mali, Tunisia and Georgia. There was a bit of grumbling among the support (a famous banner said: 'Hello Finke! You're allowed to speak German in the second division, too!'), but nothing silences critics as quickly as success.
Freiburg finished in second place and bounced straight back to the Bundesliga. Yet again the side were promoted as the highest-scoring team even though there wasn't a single striker who scored more than seven goals. It was just like old times, and Kicker magazine dutifully celebrated the club's return with the headline 'Back to the future'.
But some of the old magic had gone. The team still played a modern passing game and still stunned the league from time to time, such as when they reached the UEFA Cup again in 2001. But as sensational as this achievement was, the applause no longer came as loud as it used to.
Finke and his scouts looked for and found players, often in pairs, in places such as Mali, Tunisia and Georgia. There was a bit of grumbling among the support (a famous banner said: 'Hello Finke! You're allowed to speak German in the second division, too!'), but nothing silences critics as quickly as success.
Freiburg finished in second place and bounced straight back to the Bundesliga. Yet again the side were promoted as the highest-scoring team even though there wasn't a single striker who scored more than seven goals. It was just like old times, and Kicker magazine dutifully celebrated the club's return with the headline 'Back to the future'.
But some of the old magic had gone. The team still played a modern passing game and still stunned the league from time to time, such as when they reached the UEFA Cup again in 2001. But as sensational as this achievement was, the applause no longer came as loud as it used to.
a écrit le 31 juillet 2013 à 18h11 When, following the 1997 relegation, Volker Finke set about creating a new team from scratch yet again, he faced a problem he hadn't had in 1991. The typical Freiburg player - inconspicuous but clever, technically gifted and fast-learning - was now scouted by other teams as well.
GettyImages / BongartsJoachim Low: Inspired by Finke
At one point in Moneyball, Paul DePodesta says: 'I hope they continue to believe that our way doesn't work. It buys us a few more years.' The years they had bought at Freiburg were slowly coming to an end. In 2001, Volker Finke would look back on his decade at the helm and say: 'The tactical advantage we used to have is gone.' By which he meant that the league had learned too much from Freiburg.
Their style, which once contrasted so sharply with the game as played by the other teams, had become the new standard over the course of all those seasons. At the very latest after the national team's debacles at the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championships, German football finally moved into the foreign Freiburg territory and made itself comfortable there.
GettyImages / BongartsJoachim Low: Inspired by Finke
At one point in Moneyball, Paul DePodesta says: 'I hope they continue to believe that our way doesn't work. It buys us a few more years.' The years they had bought at Freiburg were slowly coming to an end. In 2001, Volker Finke would look back on his decade at the helm and say: 'The tactical advantage we used to have is gone.' By which he meant that the league had learned too much from Freiburg.
Their style, which once contrasted so sharply with the game as played by the other teams, had become the new standard over the course of all those seasons. At the very latest after the national team's debacles at the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championships, German football finally moved into the foreign Freiburg territory and made itself comfortable there.
a écrit le 31 juillet 2013 à 18h11 @TOUS LES TECHNICIENS DE FOOT
quand on vient vous lire ds ce toil parfois on ne sait ou on va, voila il ya une liste de 28 noms de finke....comment au 21ieme siècle allons nous jouer sans un MENEUR?...meme en france-la nya til pas un camerounais qui peut jouer ce role....je constate que dans les lions il nya que les milieu defensifs et les defenseurs hormis un vrai lateral droit...ou est le pb?finke qui vit au cameroun na rien vu ds les championats camerounais, ou mieux lui-meme est convaincu etant sur place que tous sont nuls...comment une liste de 28 noms sans amateurs et sans un veritable MENEUR...comment une equipe de basket peut jouer sans "a point guard??"
que vs qui regarder tout le temps les championats europeens et africains mexpliquent aussi....ou on va?
quand on vient vous lire ds ce toil parfois on ne sait ou on va, voila il ya une liste de 28 noms de finke....comment au 21ieme siècle allons nous jouer sans un MENEUR?...meme en france-la nya til pas un camerounais qui peut jouer ce role....je constate que dans les lions il nya que les milieu defensifs et les defenseurs hormis un vrai lateral droit...ou est le pb?finke qui vit au cameroun na rien vu ds les championats camerounais, ou mieux lui-meme est convaincu etant sur place que tous sont nuls...comment une liste de 28 noms sans amateurs et sans un veritable MENEUR...comment une equipe de basket peut jouer sans "a point guard??"
que vs qui regarder tout le temps les championats europeens et africains mexpliquent aussi....ou on va?
a écrit le 31 juillet 2013 à 18h10 In 1996 and 1997, the Freiburg miracle appeared to be fraying around the edges. Some of the unknowns had become stars of sorts and were sought by bigger clubs. There was unrest when Jörg Heinrich pouted and moaned until he was let out of his contract to join Dortmund. It also seemed as if Finke was losing direction: when the team found itself in last place in late 1995, he signed the kind of all-out goal poacher he'd so far avoided at all costs, the Dutch striker Harry Decheiver.
Decheiver did score the goals that helped avoid relegation, but a season later, Freiburg paid the price for having diverted from their formula. Decheiver and another well-known signing, the Swiss international Alain Sutter, considered themselves stars and played accordingly. ('Harry had this leave-me-alone attitude,' remembers midfielder Jens Todt.) In May of 1997, Freiburg were relegated back to where they'd come from.
Just another failed fairy tale, many people surmised, expecting Finke to lose his job. But they still did some things differently at Freiburg. 'The only man who can fire Finke is Finke himself,' chairman Stocker declared. Finke did not fire himself. Instead, back at square one, he did it all over again! As you'll find out in the next column.
Decheiver did score the goals that helped avoid relegation, but a season later, Freiburg paid the price for having diverted from their formula. Decheiver and another well-known signing, the Swiss international Alain Sutter, considered themselves stars and played accordingly. ('Harry had this leave-me-alone attitude,' remembers midfielder Jens Todt.) In May of 1997, Freiburg were relegated back to where they'd come from.
Just another failed fairy tale, many people surmised, expecting Finke to lose his job. But they still did some things differently at Freiburg. 'The only man who can fire Finke is Finke himself,' chairman Stocker declared. Finke did not fire himself. Instead, back at square one, he did it all over again! As you'll find out in the next column.
a écrit le 31 juillet 2013 à 18h09 Their new game was dubbed 'concept football' and would inspire a whole group of young soon-to-be coaches. (Among them the men responsible for how Germany played at the 2006 World Cup.) Of course, it wasn't entirely new. Arrigo Sacchi's Milan had set a precedent. But Freiburg tried to make it work without Baresi, Maldini, Rijkaard, Gullit and Van Basten - and held their own.
The man who, next to Finke, was most responsible for this sensational success story saw none of it. Achim Stocker, president since 1972, couldn't stand the tension of watching the games and preferred to follow them via teletext. Pretty much like Billy Beane in Moneyball, who 'couldn't bear to watch and carried around a little box that received a satellite feed of live baseball', as Michael Lewis wrote.
This, I promise, is the last but one time I mention Moneyball. Like I said last week, the book only reminded me of the Freiburg story, that's all. You can't really compare two games and, above all, you certainly can't compare US sports to European sports. For instance, the worst that could have befallen the Oakland A's during their experiment was losing games and money. It's not as if they had to fear being demoted to Triple-A ball or whatever. But in football, that's what can happen.
The man who, next to Finke, was most responsible for this sensational success story saw none of it. Achim Stocker, president since 1972, couldn't stand the tension of watching the games and preferred to follow them via teletext. Pretty much like Billy Beane in Moneyball, who 'couldn't bear to watch and carried around a little box that received a satellite feed of live baseball', as Michael Lewis wrote.
This, I promise, is the last but one time I mention Moneyball. Like I said last week, the book only reminded me of the Freiburg story, that's all. You can't really compare two games and, above all, you certainly can't compare US sports to European sports. For instance, the worst that could have befallen the Oakland A's during their experiment was losing games and money. It's not as if they had to fear being demoted to Triple-A ball or whatever. But in football, that's what can happen.
a écrit le 31 juillet 2013 à 18h08 And he irritated many a seasoned reporter fond of clichés by having the guts to say: 'It's boring to switch flanks and knock the ball from one wing to the other. We build through the middle, where there is little space.' When the writers would stare at him as if he was nuts, he explained: 'You play three or four short passes to lure the defence into what they think is the danger zone. And then you suddenly open up the game over the flanks - that's what is really dangerous.' Needless to say, he also did away with the most mythical of positions in the German game, that of the sweeper.
In August of 1993, Finke spoke to 50 top-level industry managers about how to turn the disadvantage of limited funds into an advantage. Then he set about proving even more experts wrong, namely those writers who said his approach might work in the 2nd Bundesliga but not against stronger opponents, not against the Bayern Munichs with their international superstars.
Well, in their first three seasons in the Bundesliga, Freiburg won every home game against Bayern, one by a score of 5-1, and even qualified for the Uefa Cup in 1995. With a team in which the most expensive player had cost 500,000 Marks. (Yes. Marks, not Euros.) About ten years after SC Freiburg had an average attendance of only 2,400 and used to be regarded as 'the other club' in the city by many fans who remembered the glory days of the older and posher Freiburg FC, Finke's team was the toast of the Bundesliga, no: the country. The side were called the 'Breisgau Brazilians' after the region around Freiburg and for their pleasing, technically impressive style of play.
In August of 1993, Finke spoke to 50 top-level industry managers about how to turn the disadvantage of limited funds into an advantage. Then he set about proving even more experts wrong, namely those writers who said his approach might work in the 2nd Bundesliga but not against stronger opponents, not against the Bayern Munichs with their international superstars.
Well, in their first three seasons in the Bundesliga, Freiburg won every home game against Bayern, one by a score of 5-1, and even qualified for the Uefa Cup in 1995. With a team in which the most expensive player had cost 500,000 Marks. (Yes. Marks, not Euros.) About ten years after SC Freiburg had an average attendance of only 2,400 and used to be regarded as 'the other club' in the city by many fans who remembered the glory days of the older and posher Freiburg FC, Finke's team was the toast of the Bundesliga, no: the country. The side were called the 'Breisgau Brazilians' after the region around Freiburg and for their pleasing, technically impressive style of play.
a écrit le 31 juillet 2013 à 18h07 Finke's players, among them new signings from places such as Donaueschingen, Ingolstadt and, again, Havelse gave an impressive answer. They climbed into first place on the seventh day of the season and held that position for the rest of the 46-game campaign to reach the Bundesliga for the first time in the club's history.
More telling than the 1992-93 table, though, were the details. Four Freiburg players made the Team of the Season in Kicker, three of them were midfielders. The side's most successful striker, an Albanian by the name of Altin Rraklli, scored only 16 goals (in 46 games, remember) and finished a distant 10th in the list of top goalscorers. The nominal centre forward, Uwe Spies, found the net only eleven times.
But did that mean Freiburg played a defensive game? Oh, far from it.
The team scored 102 goals, a staggering 20 more than the second-best offence. It was simply that in Finke's football, everyone contributed to both offence and defence. 'Uwe Spies doesn't measure his success in the goals he scores himself,' Finke said. 'Instead, he wants to help create chances.' In 1992-93, Spies set up more goals than any other Freiburg player - and he was the centre forward!
It was new, it was different, it confused traditional football people.
Finke would say things such as: 'I don't want team leaders. That's a line of thinking that buries other players' strengths.' He would shock the members of football's old boys' club of task-masters by saying: 'The only kind of discipline that the team needs is that the players use their heads and make decisions by themselves.' He challenged the star-struck public by declaring: 'Our playing system does not depend on the individual.'
More telling than the 1992-93 table, though, were the details. Four Freiburg players made the Team of the Season in Kicker, three of them were midfielders. The side's most successful striker, an Albanian by the name of Altin Rraklli, scored only 16 goals (in 46 games, remember) and finished a distant 10th in the list of top goalscorers. The nominal centre forward, Uwe Spies, found the net only eleven times.
But did that mean Freiburg played a defensive game? Oh, far from it.
The team scored 102 goals, a staggering 20 more than the second-best offence. It was simply that in Finke's football, everyone contributed to both offence and defence. 'Uwe Spies doesn't measure his success in the goals he scores himself,' Finke said. 'Instead, he wants to help create chances.' In 1992-93, Spies set up more goals than any other Freiburg player - and he was the centre forward!
It was new, it was different, it confused traditional football people.
Finke would say things such as: 'I don't want team leaders. That's a line of thinking that buries other players' strengths.' He would shock the members of football's old boys' club of task-masters by saying: 'The only kind of discipline that the team needs is that the players use their heads and make decisions by themselves.' He challenged the star-struck public by declaring: 'Our playing system does not depend on the individual.'
a écrit le 31 juillet 2013 à 18h06 When Volker Finke took over at SC Freiburg in 1991, the club had never finished higher than fifth in the 2nd Bundesliga and there seemed to be trouble ahead: the next two seasons would be mammoth affairs because, in the wake of reunification, the second division would first take up a lot of clubs from the East and then be cut down to its original size.
Kicker magazine predicted problems: 'You can't miss a certain fear of the future at SC Freiburg,' it said. 'Having lost no less than eight players, the team has to be rebulit from scratch.' But the unknowns Finke found at clubs like Weinheim, Reutlingen or Havelse, his former team, did well and even toyed with promotion in 1992.
A season later, Kicker was less skeptical about the team's chances in the 2nd Bundesliga, but raised a question you'd often hear over the next years: 'The team can play with almost any side in the league, but Finke will ask himself if he's got the players who can meet the tough physical challenge posed by a long season.'
Kicker magazine predicted problems: 'You can't miss a certain fear of the future at SC Freiburg,' it said. 'Having lost no less than eight players, the team has to be rebulit from scratch.' But the unknowns Finke found at clubs like Weinheim, Reutlingen or Havelse, his former team, did well and even toyed with promotion in 1992.
A season later, Kicker was less skeptical about the team's chances in the 2nd Bundesliga, but raised a question you'd often hear over the next years: 'The team can play with almost any side in the league, but Finke will ask himself if he's got the players who can meet the tough physical challenge posed by a long season.'
a écrit le 31 juillet 2013 à 18h03 @Tchato de Vincennes (France)
je vais te mettre juste un article...juste un apres je te laisse dans ton ignorance...on ne peut pas rendre quelqu un intelligent malgres lui
je vais te mettre juste un article...juste un apres je te laisse dans ton ignorance...on ne peut pas rendre quelqu un intelligent malgres lui
