Tears, disbelief and “absolute emptiness”: The DFB team is deeply shocked by the first World Cup elimination in the group phase. There are several reasons for the disaster. Not only the many injuries in the defense are responsible.
While the German soccer players collapse on the field after the final whistle, the stadium director plays “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. More irony is not possible. The DFB team has just been eliminated from the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and the opponents from South Korea also didn’t make it into the round of 16. Their faces are still happier than those of the Germans, after all they wrested a 1-1 draw from the big favorites and thus got the first point of this tournament, but nobody can be really “happy” that evening at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
The song was released in 2013, it fits the irony, because ten years ago the Germans were still giants in football and won the European Championship title – for the sixth time in a row. The dominance of the DFB team was immense, a lot has changed since then. The Olympic victory followed in 2016, but that was it with the titles. There are no “little ones” anymore, world football has moved closer together, other nations have caught up massively, it’s never been harder to win a title, everyone at the DFB has said that again and again.
Popp leaves the future open
But there is a world of difference between not winning a title and being eliminated from the group stage for the first time in history. Worlds that the players cannot grasp. Svenja Huth is in the mixed zone with tears in his eyes: “To be honest, I’m empty, I’m powerless and I can’t find the words.” It was “just a shitty feeling”. Lena Oberdorf has buried her hands in the down jacket, always kneads it and is at a loss: If she had an explanation, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation now”.
Captain Alexandra Popp holds the completely worthless trophy for the player of the game in her hand more automatically than she wanted and says: “To be honest, I’m completely empty right now.” She’s looking for an explanation – and couldn’t find it: “I can’t understand what’s going on here.” She even leaves her future in the national team open. “I don’t have an answer for that. I have to collect, process and sort it all first.”
National coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg says on ZDF: “I stand by the fact that we haven’t managed to get ahead now. But I give myself the opportunity not to say anything prematurely now. I also need some time to process that I can put myself first and foremost in front of the team.” That’s not a commitment to staying in the job, that’s what her husband Hermann Tecklenburg pushes at the “Rheinische Post”: “Martina is a national coach with heart and soul. I can’t imagine that she’s toying with the idea to stop. She is a fighter and will attack again.” The Nations League will premiere in September, and for the first time the teams will have to qualify for the Olympic Games. It’s a consolation for the DFB team that this additional tournament is no longer tied to the World Cup.
Whole year is bad
It was supposed to be the perfect World Cup, the continuation of last year’s European Championship. The DFB entourage started with new self-confidence, new aspirations, new euphoria – and hit the ground running. The lousy games from this year will be continued in Australia, with one exception: “Especially when we see the opening game, we knew what we were capable of,” said Huth. The DFB team had won 6-0 against World Cup debutants Morocco and further fueled expectations. But the women, who were the first Arab team to qualify for a women’s World Cup, are now in the round of 16 with a goal difference of minus four, but two points more than Germany, while the DFB women are not.
It is the continuation of an international year in which there are many problems. The game against Sweden in February ended 0-0, a silly win against the Netherlands in early April improved the statistics before the team had to admit defeat to Brazil 2-1. The narrow 2:1 against Vietnam and even more so the 2:3 against Zambia in the immediate preparation for the World Cup raise skepticism, but the DFB is optimistic that it was no different last year before the European Championship. But these two games are also affected by the dispute with FC Bayern, the champions are late in letting their players move to the DFB. It is a secondary theater of war, but after the end in Brisbane, Voss-Tecklenburg also says that he may have taken too much consideration of the interests of the clubs and load control in the past half year.
Training performance not feasible
But by the time of the group final against South Korea, the team had already been together for six weeks, a good three weeks of that in Australia. Where there are breaks for visits to kangaroos, koalas, crocodiles and snakes, but also for the beach and sea, but where training is also at full steam, this is how Lena Oberdorf described it after the bankruptcy against Colombia: “If you knew how it is with we go off in training. In the four-on-four tournament, there’s always a bad mood because we’re shiting at each other. There’s a lot of fire in there.”
The fire from training was rarely seen, especially in the last two games. Instead of self-confidence, calmness and efficiency, there were too many wasted balls, crosses that went nowhere and a lack of opportunities. In the game against South Korea, the Germans seemed insecure and helpless at times, had no access to the game and did not develop a move towards the goal, but passed the ball across the back. “I had the feeling that the gaps were too big, even when in possession, that if you lost the ball you didn’t get into counter-pressing that quickly,” says Oberdorf. But you can’t deny the morale of the team. “We didn’t find our game, we weren’t present in the duels. We showed heart, but didn’t have enough clear actions,” said the national coach.
The will alone is not enough if there are problems in the game structure and the coordination among each other does not fit. “The rooms were there to be used in exactly the same way,” admits Huth. The tactical change against South Korea with the two-pointer game didn’t work. Huth denies that Voss-Tecklenburg’s trick came too spontaneously: “It wasn’t unusual for us and I don’t think that’s how we conceded the first goal. It’s because we were careless and didn’t put any pressure on the ball.” South Korea’s Sohyun Cho made it 0-1 in the 5th minute, her run down pays off, Kathrin Hendrich cancels the offside.
There’s a problem with offense and defense
At the same time, the team is extremely dependent on one player when it comes to their own goals, because apart from Popp, only Klara Bühl and Lea Schüller have scored once each at the start, while the captain has scored four times in all three games, plus two own goals by the Moroccans. The midfield, which is top-ranked on paper, does not act creatively enough and cannot provide any decisive impulses in attack.
Another problem was the serious injury problems in the defence. Giulia Gwinn is not yet fit again after tearing her second cruciate ligament, Carolin Simon tore her cruciate ligament in the last test, in which defender Marina Hegering also suffered a bruised heel and was only able to play against South Korea. The lack of playing and training time was clearly noticeable in the 33-year-old, and she lacked the sovereignty of the European Championship. However, Voss-Tecklenburg had little choice but to back her as substitute Sara Doorsoun suffered a muscle injury of her own. Regular European Championship player Felicitas Rauch was also absent against Colombia and South Korea, and the traditional attacking player Chantal Hagel played in left-back for her. Huth was her right counterpart, but she was missing as a winger with strong dribbles and turbulence in the opposing defense.
If the 1A solution cannot play, the selection quickly becomes thin. The power density is significantly higher in midfield than in defense, the back-ups are not as good as the regular players. The youngsters have not imposed themselves on the national coach since the European Championships, the squad consists largely of the same players.
And now? “We haven’t achieved anything this year,” Oberdorf sums it up. This is bad for the euphoria about the most popular DFB team according to the survey. The upswing has stopped, the major task of establishing women’s football and bringing it up to par with men’s sport has suffered a severe setback. But Oberdorf believes in the sustainability that has been achieved: “The fans who supported us in this tournament, who have already supported us at the European Championships, will continue to support us. Because they know the team and know that we don’t sit on ourselves like that let it go, but continue to work on us and then bring the quality to the pitch.” That will become clear on September 22nd, when the first Nations League game is scheduled for Denmark, before four days later the home game against Iceland.