The Nationalmannschaft are enjoying unprecedented success but, according to the experts, the domestic game is awash with troubling developments

On a lazy Sunday afternoon in Berlin, while the rest of the city sinks into summery lethargy, Uli Hesse is hard at work in the offices of 11 Freunde. Once seen as the German version of When Saturday Comes, 11 Freunde has grown into a brilliant monthly “Magazin für Fußballkultur”. Hesse says: “We’re completing our World Cup issue and it’s been interesting looking at the national team.

“There are lots of doubts within German football but, if you include the Confederations Cup, then Germany has made the semi-final of a major tournament eight times in a row. Every time since 2005 is incredible – and unprecedented even for Germans. Our great team from the 1970s never did anything like that. So the mind boggles.”

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There should be an even greater collective boggling of minds among supporters of the other 31 World Cup countries when hearing the former internationals Thomas Hitzlsperger and Lars Ricken echo Hesse after he addresses the “complicated and difficult conversations” rippling through German football.

From the outside this strange uncertainty is initially hard to fathom. Germany arrive at the World Cup as the defending champions and last summer, in Russia, they won the Confederations Cup with a young squad as their manager, Joachim Löw, rested established players including Manuel Neuer, Mats Hummels, Mesut Özil and Thomas Müller. Löw has even excluded Leroy Sané, after his blistering season for Manchester City, from the World Cup. If Germany are tussling with doubt, what hope remains for most other nations?

“We’ve done a marvellous job over the last 15 years but we’re now at the crossroads again,” says Hitzlsperger, who was capped 52 times for Germany from 2004-10 while also playing for years in the Premier League, most notably at Aston Villa.

“The national team is playing really well and the management is excellent. But we have to rethink how we compete. You can’t help notice that, with young players, English football is doing really well. France are producing very good players. We have to keep up with them. We’re constantly asking ourselves: ‘Are we doing the right thing? Should we change something?’ And, in the Bundesliga, it’s quite worrying.”

The 36-year-old occupies a challenging position at VfB Stuttgart. “I’ve got two roles. I’m the academy director and also a member of the executive committee. With the way German football and our club is structured we’ve got 62,000 members and I’m leading that with the president and one of my colleagues.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Thomas Hitzlsperger: ‘It’s hard to foresee when Stuttgart will have a chance again because Bayern are so dominant’. Photograph: Simon Hofmann/Bongarts/Getty Images

After a difficult season Stuttgart finished seventh in the Bundesliga. Last month they beat Bayern Munich 4-1 away on the day the champions celebrated their latest title – with the procession, for once, being overturned. It still felt a long way from May 2007 when Hitzlsperger scored in the last game of the season to ensure that Stuttgart became German champions.

“It’s hard to foresee when we’re going to get a chance again because Bayern are so dominant,” he says. “You spoke to me about the great atmosphere at German games, and that fans here have much more say in the ownership of their teams than in England. That’s absolutely correct and the stadiums are still brilliant on match days. But everyone knows Bayern are champions next season.

“I talked last night with a few experts and it’s hard to see a solution unless something changes with the regulation controlling club ownership. Bayern get stronger every year because they only think of competing with Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester City.”

Hesse argues that, with the champions finishing 21 points clear of second-placed Schalke, “even Bayern realise their dominance is not good for the league and, by extension, themselves”. Yet Manchester City were 19 points clear as Premier League champions, Barcelona had a 14-point cushion and PSG won by 13 points.

“Yeah,” Hesse says, “but people are now complaining about the very boring football in the Bundesliga. Basically you have three teams playing attacking football: Leipzig, Dortmund and Bayern.

“It’s hard to play attractive football when the Bundesliga is very competitive behind Bayern. The easiest way to grind out results is to put everybody behind the ball and rely on counterattacking. When Pep Guardiola came to Germany [in 2013] Bayern became so consistently dominant the only way teams could survive against them was to play very deep. That became the mindset.”

When Borussia Dortmund won successive league titles in 2011 and 2012, and reached the Champions League final the following year, losing to Bayern, a new era beckoned. But they have not been the same force since Bayern bought some of their best players. Arriving in Dortmund to meet Ricken is a reminder of headier days – the 41-year-old former midfielder scored one of the great Champions League final goals when Dortmund beat Juventus in 1997. He also played 16 times for Germany between 1997 and 2002.

Ricken was born in Dortmund and he has been immersed in the club his whole career, from his junior days to heading the academy since 2009. “I’m a one-club guy and even my father played for the youth team,” Ricken says in English almost as excellent as that of Hitzlsperger and Hesse, “but I also care about German football. We are having some problems.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lars Ricken: ‘It’s difficult at Borussia Dortmund, we want to keep our culture but we also need to earn more money’. Photograph: Lara Ingenbleek/The Guardian

To keep in touch with the Premier League, in particular, values that have made German football special might need to be compromised. Ricken nods. “You’ve said the right words and, of course, compromise is not popular.”

Dortmund’s fans are arguably the most passionate in Germany and they protested fiercely against Monday night football – a TV-money-driven exercise that copies Premier League strategy and undermines traditional Saturday afternoon matches. On a Monday night this February, against Augsburg, Dortmund had their smallest Bundesliga crowd for more than 20 years with 54,300 fans in a stadium that normally rocks with a capacity 81,300 crowd.

“It’s difficult,” Ricken says. “We want to keep our culture but we also need to earn more money to compete with Bayern and the big European clubs.”

Hesse agrees. “There weren’t many Monday night games but people felt this was another step towards commercialisation and not caring about the fans. It’s difficult to be a fan-friendly league as well as an internationally competitive league at the same time. Everybody is walking a tightrope, so it’s a major concern. But fans realise they are a major selling point. The Bundesliga still appeals because the grounds are full, the atmosphere is great and ticket prices are reasonable.

“One of the things being discussed is the 50+1 rule [stipulating that each club must hold a majority of its own voting rights to avoid losing control to external investors]. This ensures clubs are basically fan-owned but there’s a slow eroding of the rule. Most fans want to keep it.”

Do many supporters feel it is worth compromising success in Europe to keep German values intact? “There are three camps. The largest camp is the match-going fans who say they can do without European success if things stay fan friendly. A smaller group says we have to change to become more competitive in Europe. And there’s a camp of people who are quitting the game. They have become very disillusioned.

“A lot of people are not bothering to watch any more – especially in the wake of PSG spending ludicrous amounts. A small group are being alienated because our football culture is different. Unlike an English fan who is used to his club being sold, we still have this idea that our clubs should serve the community and the game is not about making money. That’s deeply ingrained in us.”

Paradoxically the dip in the Bundesliga’s quality has not undermined the national team. Unlike in the Premier League, young Germans are given a chance to shine by clubs who have less money to splash on overseas transfers. Playing in front of vociferous crowds, in tightly contested matches, develops future internationals. A few young English players, most obviously Jadon Sancho who is thriving at Dortmund, have moved to Germany to find opportunities denied to them in the Premier League.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Joshua Kimmich is one of a strong new group of German players, but some question how long the country’s conveyor belt can keep producing such talent. Photograph: Patrik Stollarz/AFP/Getty Images

Yet Ricken notes the progress of England’s academies. “Our under‑17s played Tottenham and they were such great players,” he says before proceeding to outline a crucial difference between German and English academies. “In Germany you have to go to school until you’re 18. That’s important for personal development. Our young footballers have to wake up before seven and then to go to a normal non-football school until four o’clock. They have some rest at home and the only football training they do is at 6pm. We make sure they are home by nine.

“In England you have to go to school until you’re 16. So in English academies you can train under professional conditions when you’re 15 or 16. They train more intensively and have more time for sleeping or rehab and that’s a big advantage. It’s one reason why England’s youth are very good and very strong.

“They’ve also built great facilities and I’ve seen them at Manchester City, Tottenham and Arsenal. Man City have 16 pitches for the youths. It’s marvellous. But we don’t want to change our way. We put education first because how many players will become professionals? Also, they become more educated, better footballers in the end.

“We still have success and won the European Under-21 Championship. But we have to improve because last year England won World Cups and a European championship with their under-17s, under-19s and under-20s. It’s very impressive.”

His Dortmund boys were beaten by Tottenham’s academy but Ricken says: “I believe our kids will turn out to be better footballers for being educated. Our system still seems right.”

At Stuttgart’s academy Hitzlsperger is emphatic. “I agree with Lars Ricken and in Stuttgart we take schooling very seriously. If someone is not very good at school we take them out of training. Sometimes I speak to young players, their parents, their agents and all they can think of is playing in big stadiums. But we have a responsibility to remind them that schooling is very important.”

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Such a rounded approach underpins the enduring success of Germany’s national team, despite conflicted views of how best to protect fan values while transforming the Bundesliga. How does Hitzlsperger, also a World Cup analyst for the national broadcaster ARD and a Guardian columnist during the tournament, feel about Germany’s chances in Russia?

“With Germany you think: ‘Great team, great squad but which player makes the difference?’ Other teams have more key players. We don’t have a Messi, a Neymar, a Ronaldo. I’m still optimistic because I was fortunate enough to be part of a German squad in the [2008] Euros and the [2010] World Cup. I know how well the management prepares for this tournament and I’ve no doubt we will go very far. But the World Cup is not as predictable as the Bundesliga or Champions League.”

Ricken believes “it will be very difficult to retain the trophy. We had lots of injuries with Neuer and [Jérôme] Boateng. For me Belgium are favourites with Brazil. It’s also going to be interesting to see England. Unfortunately for them Germany can play England in the quarter-finals. It’s obvious what will happen. England will lose on penalties.”

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The inevitable laugh is warm rather than mocking. A similar certainty courses through Hesse. Despite concerns about the future direction of German football, the success of their World Cup team remains a given.

“We have points where we wonder if these good young players will keep arriving,” he says. “But we now have another strong group with young players like Joshua Kimmich. What they did last time in Russia, in the Confederations Cup, was really impressive. As I said, statistically, our success is crazy.

“At 11 Freunde, we organise all kinds of events for the World Cup. We have public screenings in various locations. Every World Cup we work hard to set this up and somebody says: ‘Hey, what if we go out in the group stage? It will be a drama.’ Everybody then looks at each other. We think about Germany going out early in the World Cup and we kind of laugh and say: ‘No, that won’t happen. We’re going to have a pretty good World Cup again.’”