Philipp Lahm Highlights German Football's Biggest Issue... But Is He Being Too Harsh?

Philipp Lahm Points Out A Big Issue In German Football, But How Bad Really Is It?

Philipp Lahm is, all things considered, a modern legend of football. One of the game's most gifted full-backs ever, an eight-time Bundesliga champion and a captain of a Champions League-winning Bayern Munich and a World Cup-winning Germany. Typically, whatever he says should be taken for gospel.

He recently wrote a column for The Athletic, as he has done on a handful of occasions over the last 12 months, detailing what he believed to be a huge problem within German football, impacting both the national team and the Bundesliga.

Lahm argues that football within the nation lacks what he calls 'specialists', the likes of Rudi Voller, Gerd Muller, Miroslav Klose and Jurgen Kohler, players who were naturals in their positions and would perform at the very highest level as if they were put on this Earth to be there.

As you can tell by the handful of players I've just listed off, Germany has a history steeped in so-called 'specialists', but is it fair to claim that there are none left?

He also refers to a lack of 'super talents' representing the nation, which again is something that they've been spoilt for in the past, but the outlook may not be as bleak as he thinks.

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Now please don't think that I'm claiming to know more about football than THE Philipp Lahm. Compared to his wealth of knowledge of the game, I'm barely even a caveman banging two rocks together and chanting a chorus of grunts.

That said, I would like to take an opportunity to play devil's advocate where I can, and fight the case that maybe German football still has it's specialists and superstars, but they've just been lying dormant for a little while, and are about to break out into world beaters once again.

A Super Talent Crisis?

Let's start with Lahm's first claim from his column: "Where are all the super talents?"

Thankfully, he concedes early on that Lennart Karl is one of the most exciting prospects in the world, playing with a quality and maturity far beyond his years. If he hadn't brought the 18-year-old up, I would've questioned how much of a caveman I really am in comparison (don't worry, I still am).

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What he claims about Karl, though, is debatable.

The young German has profited off of injuries in his position that allowed him to have a look-in at the starting 11, and he took his chances with aplomb, earning a spot as a contender for a starting place even when players returned to fitness.

Lahm questions why we don't see more young Germans breaking into their first teams from a young age, arguing that it is harming the development of talented youth and, subsequently, the teams that refuse to start them, as their homegrown talent suddenly isn't up to scratch and they're forced into bringing talent in from elsewhere.

It's fair to question whether Karl would've got his chance had there not been injuries to Bayern, whether he would've become another super talent gone to waste by festering in the reserves and youth teams.

There have still been some notable examples of sensational young players becoming not just starters but integral cogs to their sides in very recent Bundesliga history.

Florian Wirtz started his first game for Leverkusen at 17 years old, an achievement matched by Kai Havertz at the very same club. Wirtz was remarkably successful in the Bundesliga and has since earned a move to Liverpool worth well over £100 million, while the latter scored the winner in a Champions League final and may well be about to become a Premier League champion with Arsenal.

Youssoufa Moukoko could've joined the list, having made his debut for Dortmund a day after turning 16, but he's yet to hit the heights of the other names mentioned and is instead playing out a respectable career at Copenhagen at this moment in time.

Jamal Musiala also comes to mind, breaking into the Bayern Munich squad at just 17 and still being one of the most highly coveted players in the world at 23 years old.

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Elite German talent capable of taking on the world, and beating it, is still coming through the ranks. There are also plenty of quality players that have been getting action on the pitch from a young age, namely Angelo Stiller and Jonathan Burkardt, but to compare them to players of the German past would be naive.

Perhaps we aren't seeing quality like Schweinsteiger, Khedira, Hummels, Kroos, Özil and Müller breaking through at the same time as we have before, but if you compare the German national squad to most of the other countries in the world, you'd still back them to come out on top.

The (Potential) Specialists

I'll preface this by saying that this isn't a claim for any of these players to be as good as Lahm's earlier list of specialists (Voller, Muller and such). That doesn't mean that they can't be 'specialists' in their own right, though.

Joshua Kimmich is perhaps the only player I'm about to mention that you could stake a claim to be world class. Many overlook him and believe that he is overrated, but come on. Nine Bundesligas, seven German Super Cups, and three DFB Pokals – he basically owns German domestic football at this point and has a Champions League title to boot.

I would argue that Kimmich is a specialist in dictating play from a holding position, as well as being a renowned mentality monster. The 31-year-old has helped shape the modern number six role, which has paved the way for younger players like Rodri and Tonali to come in and dominate in the position.

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Aleksander Pavlovic has been closely following in his footsteps, earning almost 100 appearances for Bayern already at 21 years of age and could be set to be the next German midfield specialist, while Stiller and Felix Nmecha will want to stake their claim over the title instead.

Maximilian Beier looks like a remarkable attacking option for the future, with 80 appearances under his belt at Dortmund as both a striker and attacking midfielder, and has been playing Bundesliga since the age of 18.

Perhaps it's a controversial shout to be a specialist, but his unique stature and glimpses of quality make me suggest that Nick Woltemade, with the right support, could turn into the natural number nine that Germany has gone without for years since Miroslav Klose retired.

Lahm is right. At the moment, there is a lack of specialists within the German National Team, but that doesn't mean that some of the existing young players can't turn into them.

There also exists an abundance of young players still getting chances from a young age and who are perhaps going under the radar as a result of the media sensationalism that Lamine Yamal and the Premier League demand.

Maybe the future of German football isn't really that bad after all; they just aren't shouting about it as much as their English and Spanish counterparts.

He also suggests that the Germans should emulate the Spanish set-up, where the nation's footballing identity is coached into them from a young age. I suppose that's why they're the best national team in the world at the moment, but you can't forget that they were undergoing their own crisis in the 2010s off the back of their golden era.

Perhaps we're on the verge of Germany overtaking Spain out of a slump. The signs certainly aren't as negative as they may seem.