2023-09-12 07:05:00
The Blues face the Germans this Tuesday evening in a friendly match. Nine months before the Euro organized at home, the German team is going through an unprecedented crisis.
By Adrien Mathieu Ilkay Gündogan, captain of a selection in distress. © FEDERICO GAMBARINI / Picture-Alliance via AFP Published on 09/12/2023 at 7:05 a.m.
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The ax has fallen for Hansi Flick. After Germany’s heavy defeat in a friendly match against Japan on Saturday (1-4), the 58-year-old coach was dismissed from his position by the federation. The one who won the Champions League with Bayern Munich in 2020 will not have managed to reproduce his recipe with the Mannschaft. Eliminated in the group stage of the last World Cup in Qatar, the German selection remains above all on a worrying series of five matches in a row without a victory, nine months before the Euro organized at home.
How long gone are the days when Mannschaft terrorized world football. Even Gary Lineker’s famous phrase: “Football is a sport played eleven against eleven, and in the end, Germany wins”, seems now a thing of the past. After having experienced a prosperous period under Joachim Low like the world title in Brazil in 2014, Thomas Müller and his team have gradually returned to the ranks.
Since 2018, their record has been very bland: two eliminations in a row in the first round of the World Cup, a round of 16 during the last Euro without having convinced many people and no participation in a final phase of the League of Nations. After winning the semi-finals from 2006 to 2016, Germany no longer managed to reach the last four.
Within this selection, a deleterious atmosphere has even set in. Amazon cameras were able to film behind the scenes of the early elimination during the last World Cup. During the trailer, we see a moment of intense tension between Joshua Kimmich and Antonio Rüdiger. “You never say things to my face, you always say it from behind. You think I don’t play for the team? » declares the Bavarian to his teammate. According to Brandthe two partners did not speak to each other during the entire tournament in Qatar.
Without number 9, Germany is no longer moving forward
But then where does the problem come from? We have to go back to the 2000s to understand the current impasse. After the failed Euro 2004 in Portugal, the thinking heads of German football consider a drastic change in their training necessary. Rather than relying on its usual strength of character, the federation now wants to focus on the beautiful game and technique to once again be a nation that counts. If the results are quickly there in the youth selection and among the A, little by little the legendary implacable and merciless German mentality is being erased.
One position clearly illustrates this paradigm shift: number 9. From Gerd Müller to Miroslav Klose via Jürgen Klinsmann, the Mannschaft was able to rely for several decades on renowned center forwards, who distinguished themselves by their blood -cold and their ability to score goals. The Mannschaft attackers of 2023 are far from this caliber: Timo Werner has never managed to confirm over time, Kai Havertz does not have the necessary skills for this position and Youssoufa Moukoko is still too young. To date, the best solution remains Niclas Füllkrug, who joined Borussia Dortmund at the end of the transfer window after his good performances at Werder Bremen, but who is already 30 years old and remains inexperienced at international level.
READ ALSOFrench team: Mike Maignan, anything but the lotteryIt is therefore by wanting to change its identity with a 180 degree turn that Germany has lost itself in recent years. Even its famous nickname, Mannschaft, has now been banned since 2022, because this nickname is not appreciated by all supporters on the other side of the Rhine. While waiting to find a successor to Hansi Flick, Germany is walking on hot coals and is challenging one of the fittest selections this Tuesday evening. With five victories in five games without conceding a single goal in 2023, the Blues’ record is enough to make a German team in total loss of benchmarks and certainties jealous.
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