Wonderkid Factories: VfB Stuttgart
Welcome to the first article of a new series for jobs4football. We’ll be looking at some clubs with unsung youth academies that have produced some of the top players currently playing in Europe or that have played in the past.
Today our spotlight is on German side VfB Stuttgart. The city of Stuttgart is situated in the south of Germany and is home to car maker Mercedes-Benz and a superb youth setup.
It wasn’t until the early 2000’s though, that the club adopted the philosophy that is now the foundation of their success and values. With their debts mounting and a number of underwhelming seasons under their belt, the club shifted its focus towards the cheaper method of developing and promoting their own players to the first team.
In 2001, Felix Magath became Stuttgart’s manager and completely reorganised the team promoting a few players from the youth side including Timo Hildebrand and Kevin Kuranyi becoming known as ‘die jungen wilden’ (wild youth). In 2002 they finished mid table before being runners up in 2002-03.
Magath would leave a year later but under the leadership of Armin Veh and with the talent of a new crop of youngsters including Mario Gomez, Serdar Tasci and Sami Khedira they managed to win the Bundesliga title in 2006/07.
Stuttgart have failed to repeat the success of 2006/07 but they have managed to continue their tradition of developing youth players most of whom are sold for profit. In 2014 they redeveloped their youth facilities to a state-of-the-art level, adding in a new artificial pitch, running track and space to accommodate the U11’s all the way through to the U19’s. The U19’s are one of Germany’s most successful youth teams, winning 10 trophies and their U17’s winning 5.
The club’s reputation as a hotbed for talented young players has only increased with 5% of the players at professional clubs in Germany having come through the ranks at Stuttgart. Here’s a list of some of the well known players that have come from the South German side in the last few years: Bernd Leno, Sead Kolasinac, Antonio Rudiger, Joshua Kimmich, Jeremy Toljan, Sebastian Rudy, Serge Gnabry and Timo Werner.
With a conveyor belt of talent coming off the Stuttgart production line in the last decade we’ve also taken a look at three potential future stars currently in their academy.
Robin Littig (Centre Back)
Littig is only 18 and has featured in all five of Stuttgart’s U19 Bundesliga games this season. He also has 2 assists to his name so is clearly a danger from set pieces and will only get better from now.
Lukas Laupheimer (Defensive Midfielder)
Stuttgart’s U19 captain is a bit of a jack of all trades being able to play centrally in midfield and he can slide back into central defence if needed. He’s also featured in every U19 Bundesliga game this season contributing a goal and an assist to lead by example.
Thomas Kastanaras (Striker)
The main man for the U19’s, the half Greek, half German hitman has bagged 6 goals in 5 games in the league and another 2 in the Junior DFB Pokal. If he continues at his current scoring rate then he may break into the first team before too long.