From the local club to the national team: how the pathway in German football works

Every career starts here, including those of national team players. At their local club, children learn the game, make friends and develop a love of the ball. The coaches usually work as volunteers. Important to know: the local club is not a preliminary stage that you have to leave behind quickly. Many talented players stay there for a long time and are still discovered.

The German Football Association (DFB) runs a nationwide network of several hundred talent centres. From around the age of eleven, talented children receive additional training from trained DFB coaches, usually once a week. The child remains at their local club.

How do you get there? Through scouting. Talent centre coaches watch matches and tournaments in their region, alongside scouting days and recommendations from club coaches. So you do not apply; you are invited. The group is reviewed regularly: some children join, others leave.

Germany has 21 regional football associations; ours is the Bavarian Football Association. Players from the talent centres are called up to regional representative teams and eventually to their association’s team. These association teams compete against each other in scouting tournaments, and that is exactly where the DFB coaches watch.

Professional clubs run their own performance academies with full-time coaches, several training sessions per week, educational support and sometimes boarding facilities. Their scouts attend matches, tournaments and representative team activities. Moving to an NLZ means changing clubs, considerably more commitment for the whole family and intense pressure to perform. It needs careful thought.

From under-15 level, the DFB selects age-group national teams. Their players almost always come from an NLZ or a regional association team. Above that lies only professional football.

• The pyramid becomes extremely narrow at the top. Only a very small proportion of children at talent centres later turn professional. That is not a reason to be discouraged, but it is a reason to stay calm.
• The pathway is not a one-way street. Children join, drop out and come back. Late developers often catch up, because height and strength at twelve say little about ability at seventeen.
• Scouts do not look only at technique. They also consider understanding of the game, courage, attitude and how players handle mistakes.
• Details vary by regional association and age group. If in doubt, ask the club coach or the relevant talent centre directly.

For goalkeepers, the pathway is even narrower. There is only one place per team, and specific goalkeeper training is often neglected in everyday club life. Many children in goal spend years simply training alongside outfield players. When they then stand in goal at a scouting session, they have often never learned the fundamentals systematically.

This very gap was why I initiated the Elite GK Coaching on Tour brand together with goalkeeper coach Tom Deppisch. At our development camps, young goalkeepers work specifically on what the next stage demands: sound technique, positioning, communication, presence and handling pressure.

I will say it honestly: no camp in the world can guarantee an invitation to a talent centre or an NLZ. What we can do is prepare children so they are ready when someone is watching. And so they understand what matters then.

Knowing the system takes away a lot of pressure. Ask questions, do not be intimidated by terminology, and keep in mind what really matters: that your child enjoys playing football and keeps developing. Everything else will happen, or it will not, and both are fine.

If you have questions about our camps or would like to know how GoalConnect supports clubs, coaches and families, please write to me.