Tomorrow's Talents

The situation faced by Hertha Berlin is typical of a lot of Bundesliga clubs. Burdened by some 46 million euros ($59 million) in debt, the club can't afford to pay huge transfer fees and has to develop talent from within its own ranks. Twelve of the 27 players currently on Hertha's professional roster came from the club's own youth divisions.

Robert Huck, 19, and Christoph Klaiber, 17, are only just beginning to crack Hertha's third-division developmental side. But they're still setting their sights high.

Interrupting a horror movie they had been watching in the recreation room at Hertha's live-in soccer academy, they talked about every player's ultimate dream – to win a cap in his national squad.

"Definitely," said Huck. "If you've just experienced a World Cup, especially in your own country, you really want to play for the national side."

"I think for everyone there's nothing better than playing for your country," added Klaiber, nodding dreamily.

70,000 kilometers a year

Huck and Klaiber are just two of around 200 young athletes dreaming of a career at Hertha or beyond. Frank Vogel, the chief coordinator of the club's youth program, explained how he goes about finding young talent.

Scouting begins with little kids kicking the ball about in school competitions. Members of Vogel's staff, often unpaid volunteers, begin tracking players as young as seven years old in the German capital.

The best are invited to join Hertha's youth teams. With every step in age -- for example from Under-8 to Under-9 -- the club broadens its focus and increases the competition among the youngsters for a spot in the squad.

At age level 15, Hertha begins scouting nationally and internationally. Exceptional talents from outside Berlin are offered one of 18 places in the club's soccer academy. They live together along a long corridor at the team's administrative and training facility -- a stone's throw away from Berlin's Olympic Stadium.

Hertha spends between 4 and 4.5 million euros a year, roughly a fifth of the sum it pays in salaries for the professionals, to scout and train potential stars. Vogel himself logs around 70,000 kilometers per annum to check out promising players. Investments in time and money are necessary in order for clubs to compete in the Bundesliga.

"For a number of years, all the clubs have been forced to do more in this area," Vogel told DW-WORLD.DE. "And I think that's one reason why the quality of young German players has gotten better as they make their way to the Bundesliga."

Long days, hard work

Aspiring talents don't have much time to get into the usual adolescent mischief. Pupils at the academy have eight practice sessions a week in addition to their education at one of two special schools oriented toward the needs of elite young athletes.

Their days begin at 8 a.m. and end sometime after 7:30 p.m. – depending on when they complete their homework. There are matches almost every weekend as well as visits to the stadium to watch the pros in action. Academy residents are supervised by a live-in married couple, and each youngster is assigned a "godfather" from Hertha's professional team.

The results for those who survive the intense competition are impressive. Hertha's squad is full of home-grown young talents: attacking midfielders like Kevin Prince Boateng, Chinedu Ede, and Patrick Ebert, or defensive specialists like Christopher Schorsch, Sofian Chahed and Jerome Boateng.

Vogel thinks they all have a shot at playing for Germany some day.

"If they develop consistency, don't get injured and possess that special personal drive to become a top Bundesliga player, one or two of them will certainly get the chance to play for the national side at one of the big events," Vogel said.

Evidence of such potential is taped to the walls of Vogel's office in the form of newspaper clippings featuring defenders Malik Fahti and Alexander Madlung (now at Wolfsburg), both of whom won national caps after coming through Hertha's youth program.

Vogel, a burly, no-nonsense sort of guy in his mid-forties, looks as though he won a fair share of challenges in his day. Yet staring at the clippings, one can't help be reminded of the pictures of soccer heroes with which star-struck young boys decorate their rooms.

Change in emphasis

Bundesliga budget constraints are good for the German national team. A decade ago, Schalke and Dortmund were winning international club competitions, and Germany was crashing out early in the World Cup and the European Championships. In 2007, Schalke are long gone from the UEFA Cup and Dortmund are fighting relegation, but Germany enter next year's Euro 2008 in Switzerland and Austria as one of the favorites.

That's because clubs have changed their emphasis. "Like Stuttgart before them, Hertha have made a virtue of financial necessity by investing in their own youth program instead of spending millions on foreigners," said Rainer Holzschuch, editor-in-chief of Germany's leading soccer magazine, kicker. "And because Dortmund, Frankfurt and Nuremberg have had to follow suit, there is a lot of young talent on the verge of making the national team."

Germany is not only producing more talent. It's also cultivating players with a professional attitude toward the game at a young age.

Robert Huck and Christoph Klaiber, for example, don't experience Hertha's professional matches like ordinary fans, caught up in the tide of emotions.

"I watch the games to improve or to see what a certain player is doing in a given situation," Klaiber said.

"You don't get all that caught up in it," Huck added. "I'm more interested in seeing the mistakes and trying to draw lessons from them."