Germany is self-critical after the defeat in the group stage. Löw is not looking for excuses.

Joachim Löw in the Frankfurt airport after the defeat in the World Cup.

Four years ago, the newspaper Bild, the most popular German journal, published the title on the first page that had only two words that described the historical victory of the German national team over Brazil. In that match, Germans crushed the host 7:1. It said “Ohne Worte” (without words). This Thursday, the newspaper repeated the same title, however in order to find answers and reasons of the great failure of the Joachim Low team.

After the defeat in the match against South Korea, local journalists started to discuss what happened in Russia and what is the future of the team and its coach. “We are extremely upset”, said the chancellor Angela Merkel commenting the sports failure of famous Mannshaft in Kazan, Therefore, World champions 2014 were eliminated in the group stage of the World cup 2018.

However, her countrymen were even more angry due to the low performance of the national team. The elimination of the German team became almost national drama due to the high expectations for the World Cup in Russia. Despite weak game of the team in the last friendly matches and sad defeat in the start match against Mexico, the country believed that Mannshaft would reach the final thanks to the miraculous goal of Kroos in the 95’ minute against Sweden.

Nevertheless, this Wednesday Germany seemed a weak cartoon of the team that played several years ago. What happened? According to the German sports experts, Joachim Low committed several fundamental mistakes in Russia. Firstly, he believed in the players such as Ozil, Thomas Muller and Sami Khedira who obviously failed to play as at their best times. Another mistake was that Low didn’t give the chance to Leroy Sane, the player who showed excellent results in the current season of Premier League.

“Now, we don’t have a solid team we had in Brazil, with leaders as Lahm, fighters as Schweinsteiger and forwards like Klose”, commented Bild while analyzing the failure of the national team. “The team travelled to Russia with a lot of internal problems, such as the photo of Ozil and Gundogan with Erdogan”, added the newspaper regarding the controversial decision of the players to take pictures with the Turkish politician in London.

“Goodbye and no applauses”, wrote the newspaper Die Welt, describing the defeat against South Korea while other regional journals decided to publish common title: “Historical shame”. Nobody in the country can explain such a low performance of the team with a great number of world stars.

The national drama that arose this Wednesday after the defeat against South Korea will determine the future of Joachim Low who signed the contract till 2022. After this failure, senior officials rejected to comment the future of Low, however the German press believes that the coach will quit his position after the victory in the World Cup 2014 and sad failure in Russia.

“We haven’t played as real champions”, stated the national team in the message aimed to explain the defeat. “We deserve the defeat”.

Source: EL PAIS