One of my sporting epiphanic experiences was watching a game of our local team, Mainz 05.

Mainz had recently reappeared in the First Division and had a horde of middling-to-good 2nd division players and a couple of mediocre First Division players.

Bayer Leverkusen was packed with mediocre-to-good First Division players (which is what happens when your sponsor is one of the world’s leading Life Science companies)

And Bernd Schneider.

He was SO much better than anyone else on the field, you couldn’t take your eyes off him – they didn’t call him the “White Brazilian” for nothing.

Surprisingly, Mainz won 2-0

Now, imagine that multiplied by 25, which is what we experienced last week when the German national team fronted up for a training session a couple of days before their friendly match against Paraguay.

An hour of so of Masterclass in ball control and speed.

Mind you, at the prices clubs are prepared to pay for players of that calibre, they SHOULD be good..

This lot comes to €180m at the check-out register – Khedira €22m, Özil €40m, Hummels €26m, Schürrle €25m, Boateng €20m, Schmelzer €10m, the Bender brothers, a snap at €36m for the pair.

The coaching assistants: probably €1000 a week.

The game against Paraguay?

A very jammy 3:3.

Here’s something to help them get over it…

20 Aug This entry was published on 20 August, 2013 at 13:00. It’s filed under Mainz, Mainz 05, Sport and tagged Özil, Bender, Boateng, Coface, Hummels, Khedira, Lost Paraguayos, Mainz 05, Rod Stewart, Schürrle, Schmelzer. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.