(Jack Kerr is a journalist often found lurking in the Melbourne offices of the ABC where he is either making news, working with Grandstand or editing his Radio National documentary on the death of Fitzroy Lions. He's Twitterable @jckkrr)

If football is the most effective form of soft diplomacy, relations between Australia and Germany have never been better. 

It started with a master-class in Durban, and Australian football has been learning from the Germans ever since. The Socceeroos' 4-0 flogging in their opening encounter of last year's World Cup not only spelled the end of Australia's campaign, but also its love affair with the Dutch style of play. 

Australian football's eye has been wandering ever-westward over the years. Obsessed by England for decades, then with the Netherlands after the highs of the Guus Hiddink era, affections are now growing for the German method, and it's an influence being worked from both the top down and the bottom up. 

The mismatch against Joachim Loew's men in South Africa reaffirmed the country's appetite for positive, attacking football over the stymied and hamstrung game laid on under Verbeek. The Germans were fluid and frantic and turbo-charged by youth, more precision-engineered than mechanical. 

What confidence was lost in Durban, it has taken a German to instil again. Holger Osieck, who was assistant to Franz Beckenbauer when West Germany won the World Cup in 1990, has again given the Socceroos the belief they can play with the verve they showed in the 2006 World Cup in Germany (and witnessed from the Germans in Durban). As seen at the Asian Cup, Osieck is both a forward-thinking tactician and someone who knows how to build team-spirit. 

Then there are the players. When Ange Postecoglou took over the Brisbane Roar, he preferred a skilful European-style play-maker to the hard-men Australia has built a reputation for. He found just that in a Bavarian called Thomas Broich, who has become the best player in the best team the country has ever fostered. It was fitting that Broich sent in the corner kick that lead to the goal that pushed the Grand Final to penalties. He has won a starting spot in the players' Team of the Season, plaudits as possibly the league's best ever import and has helped ‘Roar-celona' change the way the game is played Down Under. 

But it is hardly a one-way street, with Germany now the preferred choice for much of Australia's best young talent. Former Melbourne Victory goalkeeper Mitch Langerak is the understudy glovesman at Borussia Dortmund, who are the runaway leaders of the Bundesliga. While he has only had one chance to deputise between the sticks, that performance against Bayern Munich was impressive enough to earn a call-up to the national squad for tonight's friendly against against Germany in Moenchengladbach. 

Joining him in the squad are his former team-mate Robbie Kruse - who will beat the same path from the Victorian capital to the Ruhr Valley after signing with Fortuna Dusseldorf last week - and Nikita Rukavystya, who is having a Broich-like impact at promotion favourites Hertha Berlin, with an almost league-high number of assists and a handful of goals. 

In the extended Socceroos camp is Matthew Leckie, recently signed from Adelaide United by Borussia Moenchengladbach, and Ante Drazina, also of Hertha Berlin. Dario Vidosic's chances of a national recall have clearly been harmed by his loan from Euro-wannabes Nuremburg to Arminia Bielefeld, who are propping up the second division of the national league. 

But the Australian player making the biggest waves of late in Germany isn't even playing there, with the cult status of Mustafa Amini and his flame-haired afro has going international thanks to tabloid paper, Bild. 

The 17-year-old midfielder has become a fan favourite in the A-League this season, not just because of his immense talents with the ball but also for his Ronald McDonald hair style. 

Amini flew to Germany after the Mariners' grand final defeat for a trail with Dortmund, and has made much such an impression in his short time in the Ruhr Valley that he has become a star of Bild's sporting pages, which is comparing him to Pumcukl, a cheeky animated sprite popular with generations of German children. 

It has also run a story comparing his ‘do with some of the most famous cuts of world football, including the curly white afro of Colombia's Carlos Valderama and the ‘pony' sported by Brazil's Ronaldo. 

It's a step up from the paper's assessment of Langerak, who it labelled a "nobody" ahead of his Bundesliga debut last month.