Courtesy of Kaan 11 – the official broadcaster of the 2022 World Cup. Live broadcasts, summaries, statistics and more await you on Kaan’s World Cup page
Germany is shocked. The world champion already 4 times in the past, who was marked as a candidate to go all the way in Qatar as well, was very painfully eliminated last night (Thursday) from the 2022 World Cup despite a 4:2 over Costa Rica in an evening full of never-ending rollercoaster. The one who shared what is on his heart in a painful monologue is 27-year-old Yoshua Kimich, who dreamed of going far with the national team and apparently had a hard time sleeping last night.
“I joined the national team in 2016, when before that, Germany always qualified for the semi-finals in major tournaments,” said Yoshua Kimmich. “With me, we fell twice in the group stage of the World Cup and a year ago we were eliminated in the round of 16 of the Euros. This is something that is difficult for me to deal with on a personal level, because the failure sticks with me. This is the hardest day of my career and I am afraid of falling into the pit.”
The 2:1 loss in the opening round in Japan ultimately turned out to be fatal, and even a 2:4 victory over Costa Rica yesterday (Thursday) was not enough. In the German media, they did not spare harsh words towards Hanzi Flick and his apprentices, when Germany, for the first time in its history, registers 2 consecutive rejections in the group stage.”
“It was an embarrassing and shameful World Cup, an unexpected end to a squad of cheats. Nothing was right here. Not the defense, not the mentality in the midfield, not the substitutes,” wrote Sport1 sharply. By the way, Israel was also mentioned when it was written: “Germany kept a clean sheet in its last 12 games, only against the ‘football dwarfs’, Israel and Oman.”
Bild didn’t show mercy either: “We used to be a great soccer nation. Four times world champions, three times European champions. It’s over. We need to acknowledge the painful reality. The blame lies only with the players and the coaching staff. No one else!”.
Now it remains to be seen if Hansie Flick, who stated even before the game that in any case he will lead the team to Euro 2024, will indeed be able to withstand the pressure and remain in his position. The coach, who has to deal with a failure of this magnitude for the first time in his career, said: “If we had taken advantage of our situations, we could have scored 16 goals. We must admit, the tournament was not decided for us today. We were ineffective throughout.”