Posted on 12/01/2022 5:37:02 PM PST by nickcarraway
Hansi Flick said German football will "head into a different direction, and very soon" after the four-time world champions suffered a second successive World Cup group stage elimination, described as an "absolute catastrophe" by forward Thomas Muller.
Despite a 4-2 win against Costa Rica at Al Bayt Stadium, Japan's 2-1 victory against Spain in Doha ended Germany's hopes of qualifying from Group E.
A 2-1 defeat against Japan in their opening game at Qatar 2022 ultimately proved costly for Germany, who are due to host Euro 2024 in just over 18 months.
And with that tournament looming large, Flick, who did not address his own future as coach, said that big changes will be made to ensure Germany are competitive at Euro 2024.
"In light of the Euros, it is difficult to talk about that right now, but we need to assess our World Cup, head into a different direction," Flick said. "This is the next step we will take, and we will do it very soon.
"We can get up quickly and recover. We will see what the future looks like and how we can implement our ideas. I am a very critical person and we will assess everything."
One part of Germany's "different direction" is likely to see World Cup winners such as Muller, Manuel Neuer and Mario Gotze phased out of the international team.
Muller, whose World Cup debut came in South Africa in 2010, admitted the early exit from this tournament was tough to take.
"It's an absolute catastrophe," Muller said. "It is unbelievably bitter for us because our result would have been enough [if Spain hadn't lost to Japan]. It's a feeling of powerlessness.
"If that was my last game for Germany, it has been a tremendous pleasure, thank you very much."
Spain's failure to avoid defeat against Japan was decisive for Germany, but Flick said his team had nobody but themselves to blame for their elimination.
"I don't care about different teams, it's all up to us," Flick said. "If you look at the games and number of goals that were our fault, I am convinced that we gave away our chances against Spain and Japan.
"You have to take your chances and score goals. If we had, it would have been a different story. There were lots of individual mistakes in the games and it made me very angry. I told the team I was upset.
"But I am not looking for excuses. We fulfilled our duty today, we got the win, but the scoreline could have been better."
That would be a dramatic breakthrough since only European and South American teams have ever won this thing.
I must admit I do enjoy Rugby and Australian league football.
Poor old Italy. They did not even qualify this year.
Sad.
If they ever teamed up, they'd rule the world.
Did Germany get rid of their booger eating manager from a few years ago?
Germany was just a shadow of their former teams.
They were supposed to be good, right?
The Krauts are out and so are the Belgians.
Perhaps if Jerry worried about playing instead of performing political stunts they might have had advanced
Need to leave the reputation and expectation in the locker room.
Flags or fags?
That might be the most based Twitter of the year. LOL!!!
On top of that the account will not get banned with Mr. Musk in charge.
I disagree. I watched some of the USA, Argentina, and Spain games. To me the skill level of Argentina and Spain was much greater than the USA. Pinpoint passing at distances as well as in crowded small spaces and superior ball skills stood out to me.
Defense, if you play defense the entire game you may not win but you probably won’t lose.
Words don’t mean sh!t anymore I guess.
Absolute
Catastrophe
It’s a game, i.e. it’s neither.
Germany is a fading world power, like Europe is a fading continent. It’s pretty, the food is decent, but they live off the ingenuity of others now. They are the fat harpy wife that was hot 200 years ago.
—> Germany is at home eating schnitzel.
And prepping for a long winter
Muller was a great player for many years, but his time has passed. Germany has many great players that were not named to the World Cup team, but should have been. A few of their former stars declined to be on the team because they knew their time had passed.
Japan and some of the African teams were obviously in much better physical condition than many of the European teams, Canada, and a few of the big south American teams.
The U.S. team is also in terrific condition and most of the team play for big clubs in Europe, so they aren’t intimidated. Winning their round of 16 match will be difficult, but they have a chance. Their defense is very good and it only takes one goal to win.
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