What you know about Gotze?

[Adi]

Mario Gotze

What you know about this boy?  He's about 18 and he's already running the show in Dortmund and is starting for Germany.  Incredible player who can dribble but isn't selfish.  Great work-ethic!

Barely anyone knows about him but I value him higher than Neymar and some of the other hyped up players.

Having unselfish attacking midfielders like Ozil, Gotze, and Muller makes the Germans a joy to watch. 

[Christof]

did you watch the season opening game Dortmund vs Hamburg? Dortmund played fantastic, they have so many young energetic players.
Götze is one of them, he seems to be thinking very quickly, good technical ability.

I wouldn't rate him higher than Neymar though, it's much easier to look good in a functional team, which the German national team is, and the Brazilian obviously isnt. If you watch Dortmund matches, you get a good impression of most players, because the team works. Like Grosskreuz and Kagawa, who came to Dortmund for 350'000 Euro only...

[Adi]

Dortmund is a well oiled machine right now.  Everything is going well for them and they are playing some brilliant football. As I stated in another thread, I think only Barcelona is playing better than them in the recent months (obviously dating back to last season).

Kagawa and Groskreutz are both highly valued players right now.  Teams can get a steal from Japan right now.  Tons of talented players over there for a low price and most of them are working out in Germany.

Kagawa is easily valued at 10+ million right now.

It's nice to see healthy competition at the top of the Bundesliga.  I really hope Dortmund does well in th Champions League, but it will all depend on the draw they get.

I would actually like to take a bet that Gotze ends up having more individual and team success than Neymar.

[Christof]

i think that really depends what club Neymar will go to. I don't think Real Madrid, Chelsea or Manchester City would be a good place for him, but if he went to ManU or even Barca, he could be very successful.

What they really do well in Germany is that they develop all their national team members in the Bundesliga and don't let them join average clubs in other countries. The teams are very tight together, they all play with a similar philosophy, the Bundesliga is like a family, everybody knows each other and as Kroos said, he just played with Götze and there were no problems at all.

[Adi]

I think you have to appreciate the coaching staff and top management of the German national team.

What you describe above wasn't the case 8 years ago.  In fact, it was the opposite.

Klinsmann did a great job changing the attitude and style of the team, and Low has done an exceptional job tactically as well continuing to improve the team.  The philosophy on youth was huge as well!  There are so many good German players right now who are 18-23.  It was all because the Germans realized they had to develop the youth when they were sucking balls.  There was a spell of 10-15 years were youth wasn't even paid attention to.  With players like Klinsmann, Matheus, Sammer, Muller, Effenberg, Kahn, etc. nobody cared to think things would change.  They thought similar players would just naturally come up and become that good.  When the next generation sucked balls, they had to figure out what to do next.  Love the focus on youth again!