5/2/2020 Germany World Cup defense aided by MLS's San Jose Earthquakes - Sports Illustrated

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Germany's World Cup Title Defense Aided By San

Jose Earthquakes, Silicon Valley
Germany's past title defenses have not gone well, and its federation has
been turning over new, unlikely and innovative stones to help Die
Mannschaft avoid the pitfalls of past champions and succeed again on the
world stage.

BRIAN STRAUS · JUN 12, 2018

Der Kaiser may turn out to be right, eventually. But it certainly won’t be in the timeframe or
manner he imagined as he lorded over the football world at the helm of a West German
national team that’s very different from the one about to take the field in Russia.

It was the summer of 1990. The Berlin Wall had fallen (figuratively, at that point), and Die
Mannschaft had just won a third World Cup title, emerging from a grind of a tournament
that suited its style of efficient, mistake-free and occasionally dour soccer. The defensive
tactics on display at Italia ’90 led to the introduction of the back-pass rule and three points
for a win. And the final—forgettable for everyone but the triumphant West Germans—
featured more red cards than goals.

But those were mere details for Der Kaiser, Franz Beckenbauer, the legendary German
defender and coach who became the first man to captain and then manage a World Cup
winner. At the post-final press conference in Rome, when asked what would happen once
Germany had access to players from both sides of the dissolved Iron Curtain, Beckenbauer
confidently apologized to the rest of the planet and declared that Die Mannschaft henceforth
would be “unbeatable.”

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A quarter of a century later, Beckenbauer’s bravado echoes. Both Germans who spoke to
SI.com for this story referenced the quote unprompted. It remains a traffic light, a warning
sign, a symbol of arrogance and complacency to which German football refuses to return.
Because Die Mannschaft became beatable. Apart from the Euro ’96 crown secured with a
shootout win over England and then Oliver Bierhoff’s golden goal in the final, Germany
endured two decades of uncharacteristic (and relative) failure. The run to the 2002 World
Cup felt like an outlier. Instead, the touchstones became quarterfinal upsets in 1994 and ’98,
and disastrous Euro 2000 and ’04 appearances that ended in winless group-stage exits.

“We believed [Beckenbauer] and for 10 years, we patted ourselves on the back without
getting better and without acknowledging that France was passing us by, the Dutch were
passing by,” said Bierhoff, the former forward who’s now Die Mannschaft’s general manager.
“There was less technique, not as good players. The league was getting worse. In sports, you
don’t feel immediately the decline. You can just live some time with it. Then we said, ‘We
don’t have to make these same mistakes.’”

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Bravado was out, to be replaced by diligence, investment, a turn-over-every-rock ethos and

most of all, humility. German soccer’s structural overhaul, chronicled exhaustively in the
aptly-titled Das Reboot by Raphael Honigstein, was anchored by a collaborative approach
between the Deutscher Fussball-Bund and domestic clubs. Player development was
prioritized. Pro teams were required to field academy sides, while the DFB invested in
hundreds of training centers and scouting networks that covered the country. Reserve
squads were introduced into the Bundesliga pyramid. Interest and investment in cognitive
and psychological development and sports science were increased substantially, leading to
innovations like the footbonaut, the incredible room-sized machine that enhanced players’
trapping, passing and shooting precision and dexterity.

Under coach Jurgen Klinsmann, a younger national team played a more dynamic,
entertaining brand of football and won bronze at the 2006 World Cup. Several more close
calls followed and finally, in 2014, Die Mannschaft earned that elusive fourth star. Of the 23
men who triumphed in Rio de Janeiro under Klinsmann’s long-serving successor, Joachim
Low, 21 were products of the revamped academy system.

German football became the envy of the world, their renowned will to win now wrapped in
a stylish and charismatic package. What was essentially a ‘B’ team that included 12 players
23 or under won the Confederations Cup last year. Their U-23 side took silver at the 2016
Olympics and the U-21 team is European champion. And Germany enters this World Cup,
which it'll kick off Sunday against Mexico, as a favorite to repeat.

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But don’t tell them that. The DFB is well aware that no World Cup winner has repeated since
1962, and that its own title defenses have been relative disasters. And they’re mindful of the
high cost of self congratulation. Improve or get left behind. Evolve or die. So Germany has
continued to push the envelope. This is a federation that built its own hotel and training
camp in Brazil before the 2014 World Cup. It'll try anything, and it's willing to learn from
everyone. Now, that search for self-improvement has taken Germany to the United States,
and to an MLS club that, in its own way, also is seeking to modernize, branch out and get
better.

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“The DFB is humble for sure, and it’s important for the DFB to keep the big picture in mind.
We know success doesn’t come easy and it doesn’t come quick,” said Nicolas Jungkind.
“Humility has to be part of our DNA. Therefore, the DFB does everything to ensure they’re
one step ahead.”

The fancy term used by the DFB and its American partner, the San Jose Earthquakes, is
“hybrid resource model.” But you can call him Nicolas. He was raised outside Heidelberg,
Germany, but came to the U.S. to attend the University of Florida, where he played tennis. A
job at software company SAP led to a lot of transatlantic travel, time spent in Silicon Valley,
and an externship at the DFB, which is an SAP partner. In 2016 he joined the federation full-
time, and this year, he became the DFB’s managing director for the Americas. Jungkind lives
outside Philadelphia. It’s a geographic compromise between Frankfurt and San Jose, which is
at the heart of Silicon Valley and the home of the DFB’s primary U.S. partner, the
Earthquakes.

Why is one of the most successful and ambitious soccer organizations in the world
partnering with a middling club, in a modest league, in a country that still has a lukewarm
relationship with the game?

“We had the feeling that sports technology is more advanced in the U.S. in general, so there
was a motivation for the DFB to focus on the North American market,” Jungkind explained.
“The Earthquakes have an understanding of what the future should look like and what they
want their team to be made up of—what values the team has. … Given the fact that they’re in
the center of Silicon Valley, that also means something. The fact that the Quakes have that
ecosystem, all those thought leaders around them, means they’re continuously inspired by
new ideas, new technology. That leads to the fact that Jesse can say with good conscience
that they are provoking thought, because of exactly that scenario. That’s a situation the DFB
admires.”

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Jesse is Earthquakes general manager Jesse Fioranelli, who was hired in January 2017. He’s
Swiss, speaks five languages and was educated in his native country, the U.K. and Towson,
Maryland. He’s worked as a banker, a player agent and in a variety of technical positions at
Samsunspor, Lazio and AS Roma. Fioranelli has connections throughout the football world
and is full of ambition and ideas, and he seems like a good fit for Silicon Valley. He believes
technology and data represent the way forward. He’s fixated on innovation and intelligence.
And he seamlessly slips between soccer talk and phrases like “hybrid resource model.”
Fioranelli is a walking, talking power-point presentation. No wonder the Germans want to
work with him.

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Fioranelli first made an impression on Bierhoff while working at Roma. They had a player in
common, Antonio Rüdiger, and the conversations began there. Bierhoff said he was
impressed with Fioranelli’s candor and interest in reaching out in an effort to better
understand the defender—“clubs are usually very closed shops,” Bierhoff said—and a
relationship was formed that followed Fioranelli to San Jose.

As far as the DFB was concerned, Fioranelli couldn’t have found a better landing spot.

“The whole world is going over there. It’s a great motor which is moving now, with new
technology, new ideas,” Bierhoff said. “If you want to have a more open mind and see the
latest developments and technology, you have to have a foot in Silicon Valley. It’s very
interesting and inspiring for our people.”

Said Fioranelli, “We have very fertile ground. The DFB is working with San Jose, because San
Jose is taking bold initiatives similar to ones that made Germany the World Cup champion.”

The Quakes aren’t a champion trying to hold off challengers, however. If anything, they’re
the opposite—an organization that’s failed to realize much of its potential. Since relaunching
in 2008, San Jose has finished above sixth place in MLS's Western Conference just once—that
stirring Supporters' Shield season of the never-say-die Goonies in 2012. That was hardly
dynamic, technical football, however, and it was an outlier. The Goonies missed the MLS
playoffs in each of the ensuing four seasons and fell behind in an increasingly ambitious
league.

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The architects of that 2012 campaign are long gone. A new stadium, Avaya, has risen, and
Fioranelli has been charged with leading the Earthquakes into modernity. He’s trying to
broaden the club’s horizons. In Silicon Valley, they care about what you can do more than
where you were born. There’s a Swedish coach (Mikael Stahre), a Spanish director of
methodology (Alex Covelo works on establishing continuity in style, tactics and approach
between the academy and the first team), and a Brazilian head of scouting (Bruno Costa),
among other diverse appointments.

It’s been slow going so far. A knockout-round loss last year has been followed up by a 2-9-3
start this season. But Fioranelli intends to play the long game. Like the DFB, San Jose is
investing in, and relying on, youth development. And like the DFB, the club is enamored of
technology.

The Quakes' most interesting investment so far is in the products of Second Spectrum, a
company more well-known for its work with the NBA. Second Spectrum installs cameras
throughout the stadium that capture game play from all angles, in three dimensions and in
real time. There are 15 such cameras at Avaya, and they feed immense amounts of data into
computers that can look for trends, flaws, matchups and patterns based on parameters and
preferences provided by coaches. What would’ve taken hours of scouting to learn before,
now can be determined in seconds by the computer. That sort of efficiency is of particular
interest to a national team planning to play deep into a tournament, where you find out only
a few days ahead of time that you’re facing Brazil or France in a semifinal.

“That’s huge in a World Cup,” Jungkind said.

Want to provide your players with tailored, team-specific information on where 2-v-1s might
develop against a certain kind of press, or narrow down the off-the-ball runs that pulled a
particular left back out of position? Curious about what passes weren't made, rather than
just plotting the ones that were? And you need the information today? Ask Second Spectrum.
The Earthquakes have installed it—it’s believed they’re the first soccer club in the world to
do so—and the Germans are going to leverage their relationship with the American team to
learn how to use it. It’s the centerpiece of a partnership that was formalized last year.

Bierhoff acknowledged that the Quakes are far from the world’s biggest club. But big clubs
aren’t always nimble, and often are tied down by politics or old ideas.

“They want to be part of this process that we’re doing with the [DFB]. They can help us with
their network, with the risks and development in these areas,” Bierhoff said. “So we’ve
chosen to do this, with a person like Jesse. It’s much more important to have a partner that’s
willing to work with you, then a partner with a [famous] name but isn’t open to developing
new ideas.”

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Said Fioranelli, “What helped us was acknowledging the validity and being a platform for
the German federation to work on machine learning. It’s not certain that Germany
eventually will work with Second Spectrum specifically, but they love the idea we’re taking
the lead on this and they’d like to know more about it. That’s the tip of the iceberg. That’s
where the movement is going. That’s video analysis 2.0, and we’re in the very beginning
chapters.”

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U.S. fans and media have seen a multitude of international partnerships announced before,
and they usually wind up amounting to little more than a press release and a friendly. The
Quakes and the DFB intend to break that mold. In addition to the DFB getting access to San
Jose’s machine learning resources, the two sides already have launched several other
initiatives. Fioranelli and Quakes staff attended a sports analytics conference in Frankfurt in
November, and German officials, including Bierhoff, have come the other way to speak at
Stanford and make the rounds of Silicon Valley innovators, from the Oakland A’s (think
Moneyball) to Tesla.

DFB coaches have spent time with Earthquakes academy staff and in November, San Jose
representatives will head to Germany to follow one or two Bundesliga clubs and Die
Mannschaft through their respective paces. The month before, in October, the two sides plan
to co-host a congress at Avaya Stadium that’ll bring together coaches and technical people
from professional clubs, federations and youth organizations from the USA, Canada and
Mexico. Companies like Second Spectrum and others interested in machine learning, data,
analysis and virtual reality should have a captive and eager audience. Further out, research
and development projects, games, and additional exchanges are on the agenda.

All of this is has been a bit of a shock to the system in San Jose. Perhaps it mirrors the
evolution of the area itself—which once was a blue-collar, agricultural region (and still is, in
some ways)—to the technological capital of the planet. The Goonies are no more.

“I feel there is a transition—a transition where we really want to stake our identity,” said
Earthquakes captain, icon and East Bay native Chris Wondolowski. “We’re trying to take all
the things San Jose is, and that’s still what we are, but try to progress. The great thing about
soccer is that it’s ever-evolving. Once you think you’re the best at a certain thing, there’s a
new way someone comes in and tries to fix it or build it up or burn it down.”

The Valley, Wondolowski said, is a “great melting pot, kind of like this team. We’ve got a lot of
different ideas and different people, and through trial and error we’ll see what works and
what doesn’t.”

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Germany isn’t as much of a melting pot, so where there was status quo and stagnation,
Bierhoff and the DFB are introducing new ideas and influences. And they now refuse to
stand pat. A significant part of the next “Reboot” is the construction and development of the
$160 million DFB academy in Frankfurt, which is slated to open in 2020. It’ll house and train
coaches, players, and those involved in everything from athletic performance and
physiology to analytics and finance. It’s the most significant infrastructure undertaking in
DFB history—including the 2014 World Cup training center and resort in Bahia.

“I would like to see it become the Silicon Valley and Harvard of soccer,” Bierhoff said.
“Wherever you are in the world, if you want to know something about soccer and you want
to have access to the best knowledge, your first idea has to be to come to us. That’s our goal.”

What the Germans learn working with the Earthquakes, and in the real Silicon Valley, in the
coming years will play a significant role in establishing that foundation. Most of it will need
time to take root, but there will be at least an indication or two of the DFB’s interest in silicon
as it mines for gold in Russia. For example, the Germans worked with consultants on a
proprietary app designed to take advantage of the new rule allowing coaches on the bench
to communicate with colleagues in the stands during games. Within seconds, they’ll be able
to break down tactical or personnel problems with film, screen shots and statistics, using
synchronized tablets to examine potential solutions.

If Germany eventually becomes unbeatable, it won’t be by declaration or reputation. It’ll be

because it restlessly pushed through boundaries. Those boundaries could be scientific,
technological or cultural. The DFB’s willingness to look toward the U.S. and the Earthquakes
for help says a lot. Appreciation for what it doesn’t know has replaced the arrogance of old.

“They won it all, but they still speak with humility. ‘Hey, we’re still hungry. We would like to
be No. 1 by seeing what other benchmarks are out there,” Fioranelli said. “For us, we’re not
world champions. But if you know something about San Jose, it’s that it’s a hard working
area, and our humility is acknowledging where we stand in the soccer hierachy. We are not
the DFB. But in America, we can strive for more if we align ourselves with another value we
share [with the Germans], and that’s provoking thought and provoking the status quo.”

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