Over the last few weeks and months, a lot has been said about the German youth development in football - whether it was regarding club football or the national team - and more importantly, from an English perspective, in which areas Germany has an advantage over England.

However, coverage usually stops there. There is rarely a full description of how youth development in Germany is set up, or only bits and pieces are thrown at you. Therefore, I will try to lay out the basic features and stages so you can, first of all compare it to the youth development in your respective country, and also understand more about German football and why it may work as well as it does currently.