The German national football team (German: Die deutsche Fußballnationalmannschaft) is the football team representing the country of Germany in international competition since 1908. It is governed by the German Football Association DFB (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) which was founded in 1900.

From 1950 to 1990, the team was also informally called West Germany in English, as since World War II, the DFB is based in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) which was commonly referred to as West Germany from 1949 to 1990. The DFB continues to field the German national team that had been fully reinstated by FIFA after the 1950 FIFA World Cup, retaining all records and traditions. Under Allied occupation and division, two other separate national teams had also been recognized by FIFA, the Saarland team (1950–1956), and the East German team (1952–1990). Both have been absorbed into the current national team, along with their records (caps and goal scorers). The official name and code "Germany FR (FRG)" has been shortened again to "Germany (GER)" since 1990.

Germany is one of the three most successful national teams at international competitions, having won a total of three World Cups and three European championships. They are also one of the most consistent teams. Aside from winning three world and continental titles, they were also runners-up three times in the European Championships, four times in the World Cup and won 3rd place in the World Cup three times as well. East Germany won Olympic Gold in 1976. Germany is the only nation to have won both the men's and women's World Cups.

At Germany's last two appearances in a final of a major tournament prior to their reaching the final of Euro 2008Euro 96 and World Cup 2002 – the player who had scored the decisive goal in the semi final did so knowing they would be suspended for the final. Andreas Möller in 1996 and Michael Ballack in 2002 both picked up decisive yellow cards in the semi finals against England and South Korea respectively. Möller scored the decisive penalty in a shoot-out against England and Michael Ballack went on to score the only goal against the Koreans.

The current coaching staff of the national team include head coach Joachim Löw, assistant coach Hans-Dieter Flick, goalkeeper coach Andreas Köpke, athletic coach Mark Verstegen, athletic coach Oliver Schmidtlein, scout Urs Siegenthaler, technical director Matthias Sammer and team manager Oliver Bierhoff.

From Wikipedia under the GNU Free Documentation License
Sat Jun 13 07:17:26 2009