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#4 Germany rehabilitation may take longer than expected
Going into their final group game, the odds were against Germany. They needed Mexico to suffer a huge collapse and of course, they needed to win their final match against South Korea. El Tri upheld their end of the bargain, falling 3-0 to Sweden, but Germany was unable to beat South Korea, losing 2-0 and crashing out of the group stages at the bottom of the pile in Group F. The defeat drowned Germany's hope of a back-to-back World Cup title even before they got any real traction.
Despite the devastating group stage exit, Joachim Low was retained as Germany coach. The president of the German Football Association, Reinhard Grindel was adamant that Joachim Low is the right man to lead a much-needed transition in the national team.
"We believe there will be a transition that will take place after the World Cup, regardless of the outcome of the tournament, and no one is better equipped to handle that than Jogi Low. He proved a year ago at the Confederations Cup that he can make young players into an impressive team who play outstanding football. That is still valid, as far as we are concerned."
Despite the draw with Germany, Low was still delighted with the results as he believed it was a step in a positive direction. Throughout the World Cup, Germany lacked balanced in the team. The team over-committed men forward and left gaps at the back which were exploited by Mexico and South Korea. Joachim Low's first order of business was to help restore some solidity in the team's setup and he was successful as Germany secured their first clean sheet in 9 games. The German coach believes that with time, his team will get back to the top.
"It would be naive to believe that one match has erased everything from the World Cup. It's a long process, we can only rehabilitate ourselves at the next tournament."
#3 Giroud is really not in this squad to score goals
Throughout the World Cup, French striker Olivier Giroud did not manage a goal in 7 matches. A more alarming statistic is the fact that the target forward did not play a single shot on target in the tournament. This attracted a lot of criticisms as most fans questioned Giroud's place in the team since the primary role of a striker is to score goals.
Deschamps kept faith in the Chelsea forward during the World Cup and he doesn't look like he will be dropping him anytime soon. Giroud once again started against Germany and at least he has made some improvement as he managed to play a shot on target this time around. Hopefully, this will open the door to more goals for Giroud who has suffered a tough spell of playing 17 games for club and country without a goal.
