ABSTRACT
Introduction At the end of the last millennium, German soccer was in a deep crisis, demonstrated by poor results in international tournaments (World Cup 1998, European Championship 2000) and by a lack of young talented players with highly developed technical skills and speed abilities. This was the primary reason that more than ten years ago the German Football Association (DFB) initiated, what is likely, the world’s largest sport-specific talent identification and development (TID) program.
