After doing some research it is clear that a child’s youth is often oriented, (sometimes without a choice), towards a professional football career. For instance, many fathers in Deutschland are ex-players themselves. With the experience they have on the matter, they may believe they are capable of turning their child into the next Messi or Ronaldo. Hence they turn themselves into a coach for the child and force rigorous routines on them at a young age. Now I’m not sure how early into a child’s life this can be, but I do know that there are elite schools for athletic youths. At said schools they are separated from their families and are raised with their fellow classmates, who are also football players. This life isnt very different from what we know as boarding schools. School and football are essentially what a child’s life consists of. His can happen as early as 12 years old, however, I’m almost positive it can happen earlier than that as well. At around fifth grade, many kids are out through various tests to deem whether they are worthy or not of acceptance into these schools. Now I don’t know about you, but this seems far too early. These are prepubescent years, and these schools are gambling on the fact that they can get lucky and a child grow into a perfect football playing machine. During these years a lot is going through a child’s mind, and it may so happen that they find that either football isn’t for them or maybe a child who wasn’t accepted grows up with an unique chance passion to succeed. However I feel about it ethically, it cannot be argued that this is an effective method at creating a nation that is a world powerhouse at football.

There is something that I wonder about, though, and that is what goes on in the earlier years, before a child is even 10. This range of what we know as elementary school, is undoubtedly a breeding ground, or rather a sorting ground for choosing the most active kids at a young age and putting them into a football oriented world. One thing I have noticed is that there are playgrounds EVERYWHERE. And not just any old playground, heaping, Goliath, mammoth playgrounds. Tell me you wouldn’t want to run around every day as a kid if you lived near a playground that looked like this:

This brings a whole new meaning to the word ‘jungle-gym’.

And thus you have kids who perform better than others by the time they would be entering into high school. And are given endorsements and contracts and are basically set for life before they play their first professional game. I don’t know how I feel about this.