The World Cup tournament overall and, naturally, the new stadiums at its heart, are the ideal platform to portray Germany as a positive and exceptional location, and above all of course, as a highly capable economic location.

At least six Bayern players, who have won almost everything, are in the national squad.

The two designs are completely different. The first is totally futuristic, the second is more classical. You can of course get very excited about doing something completely out of the ordinary, just like the Olympic stadium in its time. But each to his or her own taste.

The most important thing however is the money. What use would it be to us, to have a a mighty stadium but a useless team, because we couldn’t afford anything better?

Certainly it is a different world for players nowadays. But it depends on the individual.

The Olympic stadium may have been built only in the early 1970s but it was clear for a long time it had no future. For many reasons it is not good enough for modern football and today’s fans.

The trouble for today’s footballers is they have too many distractions. We used to get our old players coming to watch training with football magazines in their hands. Now, more often than not, they are checking the share prices.

The World Cup tournament overall and, naturally, the new stadiums at its heart, are the ideal platform to portray Germany as a positive and exceptional location, and above all of course, as a highly capable economic location.

It would make me a lot happier if I could meet up again next year with as many friends as possible from all over the world who I’ve met during my career. That’s where the great opportunity lies, for me personally, in our role as World Cup host.

At any rate, I can only see such a success having positive effects for everyone, particularly as our anticipation of the World cup would only increase further.

At the World Cup and even now at the Confederations Cup, our security provisions will ensure the greatest level of protection possible for all those participating – both inside and outside the stadiums.

Back then, a half-a-century ago, the situation was totally different. Economically, we were practically on our knees, and politically, we were still excluded from the community of nations. Today, in this respect, we have a totally different and much more stable basis.

We should not fool ourselves. We are not one of the world’s top teams any more.

For example, Michael Jordan earns $100million a year but continues to play basketball and remains a modest human being.

We are the last remaining country to allow ourselves two breaks in the season. You just have to look at England, Italy and Spain, they play right through the season. We on the other hand take six weeks off in the winter until the end of January, and that is a luxury.

Since Sven Goran Eriksson took over, England have been fantastic.