World Cup 2018: 5 reasons for Germany’s exit

#1 Complacency and Chemistry Issues

Jerome Boateng

In the end, all the above issues are moot. Even with a struggling target man, stale and ineffective tactics, lack of pace, vulnerability to counter attack, this Germany team should have made the knockout stages. A team with the best goalkeeper (Neuer), one of the best right-backs (Kimmich), perhaps the best centre-back pairing (Hummels and Boateng), one of the best central midfielders (Toni Kroos) along with Reus, Werner, Ozil and Draxler in attack should automatically be making the quarter-finals.

Something else was clearly afoot- complacency was certainly a factor. No team has dominated World Football over the past ten years like Germany- they have reached the semi-final in every major competition since Euro 2004 and have won the World Cup during that time. It is certainly natural for the players to be a little complacent considering that history of success. This could be seen against Mexico and South Korea when the entire team had very little intensity until the situation got dire. the situation really started to look dire. One could also assume this applied to management. Reus implied that he hadn’t started for the first game because he was “being saved for the important games”. It turns out that Germany’s opening game was their most important one.

Yet, complacency doesn’t fully explain Germany’s exit from the World Cup. In previous years, there had been varying reports of a disconnect in the German dressing room. Usually these were put aside, as Germany romped to the semi-finals. In this tournament though, one could see from the beginning that something was not right. This was confirmed when a Guardian column revealed that there were cliques within the squad after the Mexico game. In addition, Hummels chose to criticize team management for the defensive issues that were displayed in that game.

This was also clear in the performances of certain players. Jerome Boateng looked like he had something to prove and his misadventures led to a red card against Sweden (thus rendering him unavailable for the South Korea match). On the other hand, Thomas Muller looked strangely detached as he failed to make his usual impact on the World Cup. Low was also inconsistent throughout the tournament, his decision to leave out Sane has become even more puzzling considering the events of the past fortnight. Even today against South Korea, the decision to make five changes suggested some sort of discord and disconnect within the team.

In the end, we will only know the importance of these factors in a few years when players and management give their account of this disastrous campaign. It sure won’t be pretty and neither was Germany’s performance at the 2018 FIFA World Cup.