Simon Weiss, known on Twitter as @SimonAFC, is a student from Germany with a keen interest in all things Arsenal, tactics and coaching as well as the business of football. Simon is the Goonersphere German Bundesliga expert and will be writing on a variety of Arsenal matters as well as giving us the odd insight into the Bundesliga and German football in general.
Litmanen is a Dutch bilingual former journalism student and boyhood Arsenal fan. He enjoys writing about the beautiful game and is the Goonersphere Dutch Eredivisie expert and will be writing on a variety of Arsenal matters as well as giving us unique insight into Dutch and/or Eredivisie players.
Mesut Özil's transfer to Arsenal was *the* deal of transfer deadline day and *the* deal that completely changes the current image of Arsenal FC. How big the transfer actually is can easily be seen by the reaction of all groups of supporters. Arsenal fans, not being used to a signing of this magnitude, were in disbelief for a good while - as were Real Madrid fans. Naturally, both for different reasons.
Have you ever found yourself in a pub while you should be studying? Playing a computer game while you should be doing something important? I’m sure we’ve all been in these types of situations, and there are a couple of standard things we humans do to make peace with ourselves. You see, we all have a certain set of beliefs and values and in order to not be at constant war with ourselves, we either adapt our behaviour in a way that fits our beliefs and values or vice versa.
So, in our example: We either adapt our current behaviour by leaving the pub to study/ stop playing the computer game, or we adapt our values and beliefs by kidding ourselves into thinking that we have plenty of time to study the next morning (we won’t, because we’re hungover)/ the thing we’re supposed to do isn’t that important anyway (it is).
Over the last few weeks and months, a lot has been said about the German youth development in football - whether it was regarding club football or the national team - and more importantly, from an English perspective, in which areas Germany has an advantage over England.
However, coverage usually stops there. There is rarely a full description of how youth development in Germany is set up, or only bits and pieces are thrown at you. Therefore, I will try to lay out the basic features and stages so you can, first of all compare it to the youth development in your respective country, and also understand more about German football and why it may work as well as it does currently.
