German Assessment: Reflection And Respond

Credit: German Football Team

First off, hats off to Mexico, Sweden, and South Korea for providing football fans all over the world high standard of competition against Germany in each of your respective group match against the 2014 World Cup Champions. Captivating, competitive, and thrilling. Going forward for each nation, all the best in the future! Hope you achieve degrees of expectations.

Germany. What went wrong? A combination of factors contributed towards the early exit for the one of most successful European nations.

Expectations - After the success of the 2014 World Cup, reaching far as the semi-final of Euro 2016, and the success of the 2017 Confederations Cup. There was a considerable desire to be the first 21st Century footballing nation to achieve back to back World Cup glory. As that would be a great bragging right to have earned. That wasn't the case. Was the expectation too high for the 2014 winners? Maybe. Like modern teams before them.

Squad - During the lead up towards the summer competition. There was a considerable debate on what kind of combination should the head coach brought to Russia. A German buddy of mine noted that she was afraid that the team will collapse due to the noticeable lack of "matured leaders" in the team. That could snap the team to focus on towards the common goal. She also noted that it was a huge gamble to rely on a set of players from the previous winning squad who was the "young and darling superstars" of the team to lead the next generation of the German national team.

"Brutally and truthfully can you tell me you can take orders and be inspired by Thomas Muller, Jerome Boateng, Julian Draxler, Sami Khedira, Mats Hummel?" - Her words

When you compare those figures with the likes of Miroslave Klose,  Bastian Scheinsteiger, Philipp Lahm, Per Mertesacker. Which set would you march towards the gates and fight for a common cause?

That generation of players grew up from a time where the nation needed rejuvenation of fight in their approach towards football. Combine that with the better equip players from the previous mentioned set, you have a balance team that can win the World Cup. However, in the case of the 2018 team, there so happened to be an imbalanced.

System - For a high level competition. Any professional team, prepares, prepares, prepares. Think the preparations in training was fine. However the execution in the game during the day itself by the players he trust wrote a whole another story. There was a psychological fatigue as well as complacency that some players feel that they are too good for the competition. Well success sometimes is a double edge sword, can motivate you to go further or becomes a terrible teacher of keeping you living in a comfort zone.

This will not demotivate the German development system. It will make the technical team more determine to develop and innovate the formula for the future. Like how to identify matured leaders or develop them through the academies. Then chart out a road map.

Head coach - A vocal number has voiced out their displeasure of the German national head coach. However, I hope he continues on. As he still has an important role to play. In the scenario that he quits. The German FA will have a tough time with someone who can take the structure build going forward.

I would like to believe that he will use this to develop a great comeback for the upcoming European Championship as well as the next World Cup in four years. He and his backroom team must be tenacious as they have always been going forward. Work with the system and embrace the next generation of great. In the scenario that he and his team does that. His legacy as a football coach will be astronomical. "Coach, that brought and lost the glory. Came back with a bang!" Who wouldn't want that legacy to respond back to the critics?