Germany – Keluaran SGP, Togel Singapura, Data SGP, Pengeluaran SGP Hari Ini

Germany must reinvent themselves so that Gary Lineker is right again | Germany

Gary Lineker is no longer right. Football is no longer a game in which Germany win in the end. In Qatar, the big nations have succeeded so far. Only not us; as in the two previous major tournaments, Germany were eliminated early.

A pattern can be discerned in the failures of the past four or five years. Germany have lost defensive stability – the team cannot keep anyone away from their goal. Every opponent creates chances, even Costa Rica and (in the only preparation match) Oman. Germany’s game always suffers a break.

In all three group matches Germany showed passion, commitment and aggression. The opponents sensed there were players with quality. But there was a lack of strategy and order; it was never clear who would take on which role. Hansi Flick’s team were not not well organised in Qatar.

As a counter-example let’s take Argentina, who also lost to an outsider. Saudi Arabia scored twice and three Argentina “goals” could be recognised as offside only with new technology. Luck and bad luck are part of the game. But even in that defeat, you could see that Lionel Scaloni’s team were dominant because they were well organised. They then locked Mexico and Poland in their half at some point to score goals. The superior boxer sets up the knockout.

Germany were not able to do that. They failed to control the game. To control a game you have to develop play from the defence and from the centre. That is a law of football. These positions – in the jargon 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10 – must complement each other, pay attention to each other, develop a blind understanding.

Stability comes from continuity. For a long time, however, it was not clear who would defend in the centre for Germany. The midfield didn’t find itself, although the right players were available. I was sure that Joshua Kimmich, Leon Goretzka and Ilkay Gündogan would complement each other to form a strong unit if left together for three or four games. That was not the case.

Another problem: it wasn’t clear which of our fast wing-backs should contribute to the game and how, and nor was an approach apparent in our offensive play. Germany have four attackers with very good skills in Serge Gnabry, Jamal Musiala, Kai Havertz and Leroy Sané, as well as the alternatives Thomas Müller and Niclas Füllkrug. I would have settled on that much earlier.

Germany’s Jamal Musiala battles for the ball against Costa Rica — Germany have gifted players such as Jamal Musiala but did not come into the World Cup with a settled attacking plan. Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

Football is all about the details. For attacking that means, for example: how do I penetrate the box without giving up everything? How do I reduce the danger of a counterattack if I lose the ball while dribbling? A team can only solve risk management problems together, in coordination with each other. Argentina are strong at it. Germany lack the structure to do this or to play a game that suffocates the opponent, which inevitably results in conceding goals.

It will be a challenging task to form a team with a view to the European Championship at home in a year and a half. Germany must reinvent themselves so that Lineker is right again.

Every country has its difficulties in this tournament, even the favourites and former world champions. France have convinced me the most. Their team are complete: they have physicality, structure and technique. The defence is stable, the midfield thinks defensively. The attack around the outstanding Kylian Mbappé has power and creativity. But because the team love to demonstrate their superiority, I wonder what will happen when things don’t go well. Then it becomes difficult to flip the switch. Mbappé still has to prove that he has the maturity to always do the right thing at the right moment.

Spain are celebrating their culture of pass-dominated possession in Qatar. It’s always nice to watch and smaller nations such as Costa Rica hardly ever get the ball against Spain. Sometimes, though, Spain overdo it. They even pass across the penalty area, even the goalkeeper, although he is always the weakest footballer in a team. Then the idea becomes an ideology. This makes Spain particularly vulnerable because they no longer have Carles Puyol, Sergio Ramos, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta. They also don’t defend standard situations well.

Brazil have an excellent individual lineup, in the forwards, in defence, in goal. The team are no longer as dependent on Neymar. But it has been a long time since they played against a top European team. You don’t know how they will react to the opposition and whether the stars will bring all their qualities to the pitch. Brazil are the great unpredictable after Germany’s exit.

England are a physically strong team with the toughness of the Premier League and a lot of attacking options. This accumulation of quality can be an advantage. But guiding them into a powerful team is not easy. Phil Foden started only the third game and everyone immediately saw why he should always do so. Only when the best – besides Foden, that’s Harry Kane – are regularly involved does a pattern emerge in the team. Another England concern: the defensive centre is struggling to get the ball into the other half quickly. If the opponent stands deep, time is lost in the development of the game.

How a team come to success is well illustrated by Croatia. They are still built around the 37-year-old Luka Modric. Always available, he is impressively good at creating balance with strategic passes, taking pressure off his team and transferring it to the opponents. Josko Gvardiol is also one of the best defenders of the tournament. Croatia again look convincing but the nation is limited in its player selection due to its size.

I am curious to see how all the teams that have reached the last 16 deal with their shortcomings. That’s what makes a World Cup so interesting and exciting.

Philipp Lahm’s column was produced in partnership with Oliver Fritsch at Zeit Online, the German online magazine, and is being published in several European countries

Rip things up or keep faith? Germany hit the road and now face gamble | World Cup 2022

There was to be no melodrama. There were few tears and even fewer words. “Dead silence,” was how Jonas Hofmann described the Germany dressing room in the aftermath of its most Pyrrhic victory, a 4-2 win over Costa Rica that still led to their elimination. “It’s so bitter, I have no words,” said a crestfallen Serge Gnabry. Ilkay Gündogan, his belongings wrapped in a bin bag, dragged himself through the mixed zone mumbling a few things about disappointment. Kai Havertz posed with his unwanted player-of-the-match award like a man clutching his divorce papers.

Others were simply mourning, wondering what more they could have done, what it all meant. “I joined in 2016,” Joshua Kimmich considered. “Before that Germany was always in the semi-finals. Then I come along and we are eliminated twice in the preliminary round, and last year in the round of 16. I’m personally connected to this failure.” The next few days will be the toughest. Germany will grieve. Germany will reflect. The really interesting part is what Germany does next.

Because – paradoxically – a lot of things actually went right for them here. Their expected goals and expected goal difference were the highest not just in their group, but in the whole tournament. With the exception of 20 minutes against Japan and maybe 15 against Costa Rica, they played pretty competent football. This was the month when a brilliant 19-year-old called Jamal Musiala put the world on notice. And yet in the post-match debriefs the same word kept cropping up: efficiency.

You can write your own jokes there. But this has been Germany’s fatal flaw: a failure to convert attacks into chances and chances into goals, a failure to get a grip on the game when it begins to tilt against them, a failure to make the most of the players at Hansi Flick’s disposal. “It’s not just bad luck, it’s also a lot of incompetence,” Kimmich went on. “We concede goals very easily. An opponent doesn’t have to invest a lot to score cheap goals against us.”

There are two schools of thought developing in Germany over their World Cup exit. The first is that this failure is merely the symptom of a long-term sickness in German football, an inability to produce the right sort of players, the right variety of players. This was the line taken by Flick when he pointed out that Spain and England were years ahead of Germany in terms of youth development. “The problems we have had at the World Cup are not only at this World Cup,” agreed the team manager Oliver Bierhoff, who may be the first casualty of this debacle. “It has been happening for the last three years.”

A lot is made of Germany’s wealth of talent, a first XI that could stand comparison with any team on the planet. And yet a little interrogation is demanded here. Antonio Rüdiger aside, who is Germany’s next world-class defender? Is the 29-year-old Niclas Füllkrug really the answer up front? How, in a 26-man squad, did Germany end up in a situation where Kimmich had to return to right-back, leaving them with only two holding midfielders? “Do we really have as many good players as we think?” Thomas Hitzlsperger asked on German television. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

The other school of thought is that very specific things went wrong in Qatar that will not require years of surgery to fix. There remains a suspicion that Flick, in trying to implement his intense, integrated, high-pressing style on the national team, is essentially trying to recreate Bayern Munich on an impossible deadline. Preparation has been minimal; the relationships simply have not had time to develop. Gündogan hinted at this when he said Germany were “not able to perform as a team”.

So really there are two ways Germany can go from here. There is a European Championship on home soil in barely 18 months. Germany will again be among the favourites and most of the current side – Flick included – are keen to continue. So do you rip things up and start again with a new coach, a more pragmatic style, a departure from principles? Or do you keep the faith in a process that has now produced three straight tournament failures? There are no easy answers. Whatever it does, German football is about to embark on a monumental gamble.

‘A football dwarf’: German media reacts to Die Mannschaft’s early World Cup exit | World Cup 2022

It was a “winter nightmare” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), an “enormous embarrassment” (Bild), a “new low point” that revealed the four-times world champions to have shrunken into a “football dwarf” (Spiegel). The morning after the Nationalmannschaft crashed out of the World Cup at the group stage for the second tournament in a row, German front pages made for blunt reading.

On paper, Germany’s exit was a marginal affair. A 20-minute loss of shape and focus in the opener against Japan, leading to two goals conceded within eight minutes. A ball that had stayed on the pitch by millimetres before Japan scored their winner in a 2-1 win against Spain that rendered Germany’s result against Costa Rica meaningless. If Dani Olmo had equalised for Spain in the dying minutes of the parallel game, Germany would have gone through.

But that was not how the match has been digested in Germany the day after. Whether the ball had crossed the line in the Japan-Spain match was barely discussed in the TV postmortem and a secondary concern for most newspapers.

Instead, the time had come for soul-searching questions about the philosophy of the German football since its World Cup win in 2014, or the lack of one.

In the TV studio, Bastian Schweinsteiger said that the German players didn’t seem to have the same “burning” desire for success as others, explicitly naming Costa Rica but seeming to imply his own heroics at the Maracanã. The DFB, Germany’s football association, needed to train and produce more Führungsspieler or “leadership players”, he added.

The coach, Hansi Flick, impatiently shrugged off Schweinsteiger’s suggestions but conceded that old certainties once attached to German football had evaporated into thin air. “We didn’t have efficiency in this tournament,” he said.

Newspapers were less willing to reach for national mythologies. “This had nothing to do with bad luck or incompetence, lack of concentration or not craving success,” wrote Die Welt. “A 7-0, which would have guaranteed progress to the knockout stages, would have been possible.

“What remains is an embarrassing World Cup exit from a group containing Japan and Costa Rica. The German national team has once again fallen far short of its own aspirations, it has arrived in grey mediocrity.”

Süddeutsche Zeitung agreed: “Couldn’t we, maybe shouldn’t we, have gone for an 8-0,” the broadsheet asked. “That result would have sufficed and after the opener there were chances aplenty.”

Flick and the national team director, Oliver Bierhoff, were the central target of criticism, and calls for a fresh start before the 2024 Euros in Germany are likely to grow more vocal in the coming weeks and months.

“Flick’s most basic shortfall,” wrote Die Zeit, was that he didn’t seem to know which players he really trusted in. By substituting Ilkay Gündogan, “he incomprehensibly took off one of his best, and certainly the most intelligent player for the third time in three matches.

“That way the coach practically obstructs the team in the process of developing hierarchies and responsibilities.”

Hansi Flick left in limbo as Germany fail to find new winning blueprint | World Cup 2022

Everything is connected. A whistle blows in Doha and within fractions of seconds, via a lattice of mobile phone networks and whispers and nudges, its sound has somehow travelled the 30 miles to Al Khor. And the cheer around the stadium gives the game away, and on the Germany bench Hansi Flick senses a change in the air, and he takes a look around, and he glances at his bench, and he knows, he just knows. He turns back to face the pitch. But his hands are in his pockets, and his thoughts are elsewhere.

Everything is connected. A World Cup group stage consists not simply of three discrete games but one cogent narrative, and if you don’t pay attention at the start you may well miss something that you need later. Here Germany loaded all their usual programmes, moved the ball with pace, did their jobs, scored four goals. But although they didn’t know it yet, none of it was any use to them. The game had already gone, and it had gone in eight wild minutes against Japan at the Khalifa International Stadium nine days earlier.

The great German sides could raise their game to suit the occasion, do whatever it took, squeeze every last drop out of their resources and system. Everyone does their job, and you win. For better and for worse, this team feel like its polar opposite. And so the problem comes when you combine the classic German mentality with a modern style of football that demands perpetual intensity, that needs every part of the machine to be 100% switched on at all times.

This game, as futile as it proved, was ample evidence of this. Germany were utterly dominant in the opening minutes and yet had just a single goal to show for it. Meanwhile Costa Rica went up the other end and scored twice in 12 chaotic minutes as the gloomy news filtered through from Doha and Germany allowed their minds to drift. Flick had withdrawn Ilkay Gündogan and Leon Goretzka in an attempt to engineer greater attacking thrust but in so doing had hollowed out his midfield and left Germany vulnerable to the counter. Everything is connected.

Kai Havertz came on and burgled two sharp goals; Niclas Füllkrug added a fourth with a classic poacher’s finish. Germany had saved Spain but they were powerless to save themselves. There was, perhaps, a bitter symmetry in the scoreline. Germany 4-2 Costa Rica: the first game of the 2006 World Cup in Munich, the game that brought the curtain up on Germany’s summer of love, unleashed a wave of footballing fervour that would carry them to a World Cup win in 2014 and a decade of golden memories. Now, ironically, the music has stopped on the very same chord.

Hansi Flick watches on the touchline as Germany take a throw-in against Costa Rica. — Hansi Flick, pictured on the touchline during his side’s game against Costa Rica, may pay for Germany’s World Cup exit with his job. Photograph: Amin Mohammad Jamali/Getty Images

And so the postmortems can begin, the fingers can be pointed, the scapegoats sought. Flick may just pay for this debacle with his job, although the smart money is on him being given one more crack. There is, after all, talent to be mined here. Havertz, the wonderful Jamal Musiala, the teenage Dortmund striker Youssoufa Moukoko, the marvellous Leverkusen playmaker Florian Wirtz: technical players, modern players, players a good coach can build a team around.

Meanwhile others will fall by the wayside. Thomas Müller has already hinted at retirement. Manuel Neuer and Gündogan may even go too. Mario Götze has surely played his last tournament. There is a tactical blueprint, a base to build from, a home Euros in 2024 to work towards. German football has often prided itself on its composure, its refusal to press the panic button, its refusal even to acknowledge the existence of a panic button. Even after a third successive tournament failure it is possible to spin an enthusiastic yarn around this team, paint this setback as the inevitable collateral damage of a longer reinvention.

Jamal Musiala evades a Costa Rica defender. His performances were a rare bright spot for Germany during the tournament. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Yet it is impossible to shake the feeling that something essential has been lost here, too. Everything is connected. The grounds for German optimism are also the grounds for pessimism. The technical qualities of the new generation have come at a price: a lack of defensive rigour, a chronic absence of genuine strikers, an inability to capitalise on dominance or see out the tough periods, a naivete that at times has strayed into the realm of complacency.

These are not bad players. But for too long they have lacked direction, purpose, a safety net. Germany brought just a few thousand fans out to Qatar. The indifference back home is palpable. Since Euro 2016 they have been behind in every single tournament game they have played. And by 2026 it will be 12 years since they last reached the knockout stages of the World Cup. Everything is connected. And here, the four-time world champions learned that lesson in the cruellest of fashions.

Germany dumped out of World Cup despite wild 4-2 win against Costa Rica | World Cup 2022

There was an added pain for Germany in the basic jauntiness of Costa Rica’s designated goal music, a taunting, cajoling blast of trumpets and maracas, the kind of thing that might get played on a gameshow as a bucket of gunge descends over the dunce’s booth.

With 48 minutes gone in the Doha-orbit World Cup zone, Germany had been bossing this Group E endgame, cruising a little uneasily, but with their eyes fixed on the horizon towards the last 16. The campaign had been weird. There was Antonio Rüdiger’s mocking knees-high run. And the Niclas Füllkrug interlude, where a man who could actually score a goal briefly became a kind of Teutonic folk saviour. But this felt like a kind of safety.

Then semi-disaster struck. Japan scored at the Khalifa International Stadium. Germany had to crank the engines, score again and hope for a Spanish revival. At which point outright disaster struck as Japan went 2-1 up, and Germany were freewheeling towards the exit doors. A mild, controlled 1-0 had become a meek, end-of-an era 1-0.

Germany still needed a just-in-case goal, needed to play like this was all there was. They did the opposite, falling apart instead, as a vast channel of space opened up down the right. Costa Rica surged though, Keysher Fuller crossing, Manuel Neuer saving the first header, and Yeltsin Tejeda burying the rebound.

The music blared. Hansi Flick slumped deep in his padded chair, eyes bulging. At which point, something even more incredible happened. Briefly, this stopped being a Germany story and became a Costa Rica one.

The second Ticos goal was farcical, all flailing legs, Juan Pablo Vargas bundling the ball home. And with that Costa Rica stood on the verge of pub-quiz immortality, all set to eliminate in their final group game the team that beat them 7-0 in their first.

Juan Pablo Vargas celebrates his second-half strike with his Costa Rica teammates. Photograph: Dan Mullan/Getty Images

But wait. What was this. More madness. Germany equalised! 2-2. Where are we? Is this really the place Vendôme? Kai Havertz got the equaliser. There were 17 minutes to go. How many more worlds, how many alternate universes would we have to absorb?

Füllkrug had already been summoned to add muscle and vibes to Germany’s attack. Jamal Musiala hit a post twice. Group E has been a weird kind of torture for Germany, but this was something new. As the seconds slipped away we had mutual assured footballing destruction on the cards, both teams here going out, six goals scored, a wild crisscross of emotions.

Havertz made it 3-2. Germany still needed one more with four minutes to go, and one more from Spain. Pointlessly they did get to 4-2, Füllkrug scoring after a wild, hallucinogenic VAR delay during which the stadium seemed to melt and ooze through the floor. Germany had done Spain a solid. Any chance of returning the favour?

It wasn’t to be. Japan topped the group. Both sets of players slunk from the pitch. Both had come to the stadium still in the Group E gutter, but looking at the stars. At kick-off all four teams could still go through. All four could go out.

This was World Cup group final matchday as a freeform jazz flute solo, and a great advert for the four-team format just as Fifa contemplates tearing it up to inflict pre-match penalty shoot-outs and other three-team gimmickry for the next bloated edition. More is not always better. Often it’s much, much worse.

Germany would qualify if they won and Spain beat Japan. A draw there would mean they had to score more goals than Japan. Or they could just win by two goals if Japan failed to win. Or they could just say hang it all, win 9-0 and go through anyway.

Flick went for broke in a nuanced way, with Thomas Müller starting ahead of Musiala and the twin man-bun speedsters Leroy Sané and Serge Gnabry.

Kai Havertz fires past Keylor Navas to restore Germany’s lead. Photograph: Darko Bandić/AP

And the Al Bayt felt like a fitting last-chance saloon, a stadium with an air of the one-horse desert town, the lone saloon, the clock ticking around closer to midnight. It is one of the more pointless vanity projects at this despot-ball tournament, a vast fibreglass replica-tent, with rows of empty seats for this do-or-die World Cup game.

Musiala was sublime early on, coming on like a miraculous human pond-skater, gliding through the red shirts, brain whirring, scanning the space, making the game throb and buzz with possibilities. The opening goal came from Musiala’s side, David Raum crossing for Gnabry to head into the far corner,

Meanwhile at the Khalifa, Spain had also gone one up against Japan. This was falling Germany’s way. And for a while nothing much happened. The noise level dipped to scattered shouts. The All Bayt waited, awkwardly for time to pass. It came in a rush at the end.

Germany face questions that cut to heart of identity before Costa Rica tie | World Cup 2022

Very few Germans seemed to take much pleasure from their 2-1 defeat against Japan in the opening game of the World Cup. One notable example, however, appeared to be the country’s far-right AFD party, for whom the surprise result – coupled with the decision to make a protest in support of LGBTQ+ rights before the game – offered irrefutable proof of the team’s confused priorities.

“If you care more about woke armbands than about football, you lose 1:2 against Japan,” tweeted Martin Reichardt, the party’s family policy spokesperson. “Defeat is symbolic of the decline of Germany, where ideology takes precedence over everything!”

The party’s deputy leader, Beatrix von Storch, agreed, writing: “I believe that if our team proudly wears the German colours and stops politicising the sport with woken crap, they will win again.”

The subtext here – and not a subtle one, all told – was clear enough. Loyalty to country trumps loyalty to universal values, even over something as unobjectionable as LGBTQ+ rights. Peer a little closer and you can even taste the familiar acrid notes of the globalist betrayal myth gaining ground in many western democracies: a deep-rooted sense of decline, an angst over one’s place in the world, the idea that the qualities that once made you great are being eroded from all directions.

These are not new conversations, or even really sporting conversations. But right now football – and in particular, the German football team – feels like the conduit through which these debates are being enacted. And so the question of whether Hansi Flick’s side can beat Costa Rica and avoid elimination in the World Cup group phase for the second time in a row is, in many ways, one that goes deeper than football.

Rather it strikes at the very heart of German society itself: a society in the grip of sweeping demographic change and political turbulence, where the old certainties no longer feel as certain, where the old assurance no longer feels as assuring. Who are we? What makes us us? What does the future hold? On a smaller scale, but under the harshest spotlight, and in full view of the world, these are some of the very same questions that Flick is currently trying to address.

Hansi Flick has a lot to ponder before the game against Costa Rica. Photograph: Annegret Hilse/Reuters

Take the lack of a natural striker, an ongoing source of introspection in Germany and one brought into sharper focus in recent years. From Gerd Müller to Karl-Heinz Rummenigge to Jürgen Klinsmann to Miroslav Klose; the dominant, masculine No 9 is a central part of the mythology of German football. And so for many, the absence of world-class centre-forwards – generally believed to be a product of a youth development system that prioritises versatility and technical excellence over specialism – is emblematic of something deeper; a dilution of German identity, a divergence from tradition.

By the same token, the rise of the veteran Niclas Füllkrug – the stalwart Werder Bremen striker who was playing second-division football until this season – has been interpreted as a return to core values. “The German virtues, which we had been missing a bit lately, are back,” wrote Lothar Matthäus after Füllkrug’s emphatic equaliser against Spain on Sunday night.

Perhaps this feeds into a wider debate about whether, in an age of porous borders and the increasing fluidity of ideas, there remains such a thing as a national footballing identity. And if so, what is Germany’s? “I do believe there are identities,” Flick said on Wednesday. “Perhaps the nuances have changed in recent years. We want to have high intensity, be active and have possession. We want to force the opponent to make mistakes, which means we sometimes press hard. We want to stand for attractive and modern attacking football.”

All of which sounds great, but perhaps you will note that there is very little new or unique in any of this. None of the above marks Germany out as German. Flick could just as easily have been describing any of the top-16 teams in this tournament. And so: who are we? What makes us, us? For German teams of recent vintage, it came down to mentality. Yet three consecutive soft tournament exits have shattered the image of Turniermannschaft; the well-drilled squad that would win the key battles by simple virtue of being German.

This too is bound up in notions of decline, the sense that a new generation lacks the character and hardness of their predecessors. “With the exception of Manuel Neuer, Thomas Müller, Leon Goretzka and Joshua Kimmich, they are not as strong in their heads as other footballers used to be,” the respected former coach Winnie Schäfer said in a recent interview.

Nor is it simply wizened ex-pros and right-wing politicians questioning the fibre of German football. A widespread disillusionment over the moral dimension of the World Cup – human rights, commercialisation, climate change – has engendered an ambivalence to the tournament back home. “The strength of football used to be that there was a common thread from children’s and youth football to the national team with which one could identify wonderfully,” said the academic Harald Lange in an interview with Tagesspiegel at the weekend. “This is becoming increasingly difficult for many young people and adults alike.”

Meanwhile, the unpopularity of the DFB, the national federation, seems to cut across lines of politics and age. Fan groups report that the national team is struggling to engage young supporters, very few of whom have travelled to Qatar. Players like Füllkrug and Kai Havertz have talked openly here about a perceived lack of support.

And so for Flick there are stark realities to be faced and hard decisions to be made. Does he persist with the team that earned the creditable late draw against Spain? Does he give a first tournament start to Füllkrug, Germany’s new cult hero? Will he bolster a defence that has looked fragile in their first two games? Does he stick with the midfield triangle of Ilkay Gündogan, Goretzka and Kimmich? These are, on the face of things, bald footballing questions. And yet on another level there is a sense that Germany is fighting on a far broader front.

Spain can send Germany home but have no plans to offer Japan a biscuit | Spain

Dani Carvajal was standing beneath the stand at Al Bayt Stadium, talking to journalists in the mixed zone when his Real Madrid clubmate Antonio Rüdiger appeared, sidled up to him and whispered something in his ear, laughing as he left. There was a smile and then the words were revealed, exactly as everyone imagined. “Yes, yes,” the Spain full-back said. “He told me to beat Japan.”

Spain and Germany had just drawn, leaving everything open for the final round of games. The selección had played well for an hour but then lost control after taking the lead, saw Niclas Füllkrug score an equaliser, and in the end might even have been beaten, Luis Enrique admitted. Ultimately, though, the manager insisted that Spain were in a good position: “Top of the group of death, the only group that got ‘oohs’ when the draw was made.”

All four teams could still progress. Spain still need a point to go through, while a win would guarantee top spot. Although they are bottom, Germany could go through if they beat Costa Rica, but here’s the thing: they would need Japan to lose to Spain. If the other game ends in a draw, Germany would need to win by at least two goals against Costa Rica or by a single-goal margin so long as they score more than Japan do against Spain.

If that sounds complicated, strip it all away and it’s simple: as Rüdiger said, Germany could really, really do with Spain beating Japan. He was not the only one either. Dani Olmo was laughing too, revealing that his RB Leipzig teammate David Raum had made the same request.

A couple of days before their second group game, when they knew a win would qualify them with a game to spare, the Spain midfielder Carlos Soler said it was not just about getting through, although that was what mattered most; it was also an opportunity to knock Germany out. He had nothing against them. There was no dislike, not even a rivalry, just a reality. It would, in truth, be better not to have to face them again.

That opportunity was not taken, but it presents itself again now. Well, sort of. It is different now. Last time it came as a consequence of winning; this time it would come as a consequence of not winning. Nor is it clearcut, the combinations too complex for that, both from Spain’s point of view and Japan’s. But it has not gone unnoticed that a draw between Spain and Japan could mean both going through at Germany’s expense.

Spain manager Luis Enrique talks to Sergio Busquets during the draw with Germany — Luis Enrique may choose to rest Sergio Busquets against Japan as he is a booking away from a suspension. Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

Those combinations, the possibility of in effect having a mutually beneficial pact to put someone else out, is the reason the final group-stage games are played simultaneously. That change was prompted by what has become known as the Disgrace of Gijón, when West Germany and Austria conspired to play out a 1-0 win for the former to send both sides through and knock Algeria out of the 1982 World Cup. Gijón is Luis Enrique’s home city, and he was 12 at the time. He didn’t go, but he did try to get in.

A biscotto, they call it: a biscuit. Sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles. But not this time. Luis Enrique said tiredness was becoming a factor and it was notable that he mentioned Sergio Busquets having a yellow card that puts him a booking away from suspension. There is another element, too: finishing second rather than first might even be beneficial, if you consider potentially avoiding Brazil in a quarter-final to be a good thing. But the coach insisted Spain would play to win, no matter what. And indeed, amid all the speculation it has been forgotten that they could still go out. As for Japan, a draw offers no guarantees. A win for them and Spain would be in trouble.

“[Rüdiger] told me to beat Japan; there are no doubts that we will go out to win,” Carvajal said. “We want to be top, we want to win every game and we will do everything we can to achieve that.”

Olmo agreed: “We always want to win. If we win we will be in the last 16, and that’s what we want. Today was a pity but we will keep trying. The feeling is bittersweet. We lost control after the goal, and lost balls that we don’t usually lose. We have to be calmer and keep longer spells of possession, play the way we always try to do.”

For Germany, there was a reprieve. Costa Rica’s surprise win over Japan and their equaliser against Spain gives them an opportunity, even if they may need help from clubmates. “If you look at the 90 minutes, a draw is OK and of course we take it: now everything is about the last game,” Ilkay Gündogan said. “The disappointment was huge after that first game, even [for] me personally to be honest. The day after, even the second day after, it felt like it was unnecessary. Getting a good result was crucial for us today.”

The Manchester City midfielder also explained why Germany had not repeated their protest from the first match, when they had posed for the team picture with their hands over their mouths, after Manuel Neuer as captain was banned from wearing the OneLove armband. “We had a few players who are mad with Fifa because there were things planned from the team and then [with] this getting disallowed just before the game, a few players were disappointed and frustrated and wanted to show something. We had a discussion in the team and it got decided that we will do the gesture against Fifa,” he said.

“Honestly, my point of view is that now the politics is finished. Qatar is very proud, the country is proud to host the World Cup, it’s the first Muslim country – I come from a Muslim family – so the Muslim community is proud. So I think it is now about football, enjoying it.”

Germany’s Hansi Flick takes heart from hard-fought point against Spain | World Cup 2022

Hansi Flick said he believes Germany’s draw with Spain will help them strike a rhythm after the substitute Niclas Füllkrug’s late equaliser left both teams feeling confident of reaching the last 16.

The Werder Bremen striker, who scored on his Germany debut on the eve of the tournament, in a friendly win against Oman, cancelled out Álvaro Morata’s second-half strike to boost Germany’s hopes of avoiding an embarrassing group-stage exit at a second successive World Cup.

Germany will qualify for the last 16 if they beat Costa Rica and Japan lose to Group E leaders Spain on Thursday. If Spain and Japan draw, then Germany would need to beat Costa Rica by at least two goals, or by a single-goal margin providing they score more goals than Japan do against Spain.

Leroy Sané rounded the Spain goalkeeper Unai Simón deep into six minutes of second-half stoppage time but was unable to get a shot away after overrunning the ball and in the first half Antonio Rüdiger had a header from a free-kick correctly ruled offside.

“We knew what it was all about and what was at stake,” Flick, the Germany manager, said. “We saw a Spanish team that knows how to play. At the end we had a very good chance but unfortunately we didn’t hit the back of the net.

“Things start to develop when you start to win so maybe this will give us a boost to give us the self-confidence to score goals. We know that this was just the first step and in the next match against Costa Rica we want to create the conditions so that we can go through to the round of 16.”

Luis Enrique, the Spain head coach, said the defender Jordi Alba, who assisted Morata for his goal shortly after the hour, deserves praise, not scrutiny. “What can I say about Jordi Alba? He is a top player, just as [Sergio] Busquets. Sometimes people get tired of older players … Jordi Alba is the best wing-back in the final third; he still defends so well, he is a top player, just like Busquets.

“People have been trying to retire him [Busquets] for so many years and I hope I can convince Busquets to play another World Cup because I’m sure we can improve when he is on the pitch.”

On Sunday morning Luis Enrique revealed in a social media post that the game would carry extra significance because it would have been the 13th birthday of his daughter Xana, who died of cancer in 2019.

“It was a very special day for me and my family,” the 52-year-old said afterwards. “For a long time, we have tried to live the situation with all normality. Our daughter is not with us any more but she lives with us every day.”

No strikers bad, two strikers good, as Spain and Germany share the spoils | World Cup 2022

Well, there’s a thing. Maybe there is something to be said for these so‑called experts after all. For 53 minutes of this 1-1 draw Germany and Spain played out a carefully hedged, engrossingly mannered game of football. This was a game of midfield squared, of Big Midfield Energy, a quiet debauchery of midfield.

Al Bayt Stadium is essentially a vast illuminated fibreglass tent dumped down in the desert scrub. It was packed here, or almost packed. But at times in the second half it was so quiet in the stands you could hear the air conditioning hiss. This is, it seems likely, not a sentence that has been typed before in a football report.

The game wasn’t dull, or unengrossing. But it was oddly samey and controlled. Spain don’t play with a central attacker. Hansi Flick chose not to here, at least not a real one. And there was a feeling from the start Germany were so worried about Spain’s midfield they forgot to pack a sharp edge, so keen to smother the centre that they smothered themselves.

There was a difference in approach here. With 53 minutes gone Spain, who had largely dominated the play, sent on Álvaro Morata as a central striker, and it felt like a variation, an active choice. It broke the game open too, as 10 minutes later he scored.

It felt weirdly easy too, like simply walking in through the front door after jimmying away at a window for an hour. Jordi Alba’s cross from the left was rolled into a useful area. Morata made a classic striker’s run, haring at an oblique angle across the corner of the six-yard box. It seemed to flummox Niklas Süle. The finish from Morata was a lovely thing, the ball bouncing up just right for the flick off the outside front half of his foot, the fourth toe, to flip it up over Manuel Neuer.

Flick responded, sending on Niclas Füllkrug , who is 29 and a bulky, classical No 9. He scored with his third touch, making a nice little inside run, letting the ball roll across him and then absolutely spanking it into the top corner, a thrilling full-bodied example of the 29-year-old high‑class journeyman striker’s art.

And so a 1-1 draw means Germany live on at this World Cup. Somehow Flick’s team have found a tournament wormhole where they can stumble along but still remain alive, in the hat, still fighting for this, and loving it, loving it, if they beat Costa Rica three days from now.

Niclas Füllkrug powers Germany’s equaliser into the top corner. Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters

This was a game that will pose questions too. Germany dredged up a point here out of sheer sporting will, the ability to scrap and rat, elements some have identified as missing from the recipe packet. But they will need to fix the front of this team, where the level of talent has not been reflected in a stodgy and fraught World Cup.

Flick picked a more tooled-up three-man midfield. The attack was led, more or less alone, by Thomas Müller, which isn’t in itself a bad idea. This is Müller’s seventh tournament. He really is the most durable of ambling warrior-forwards, a footballer who still doesn’t really have a category, except basically playing like Thomas Müller.

He led Germany’s first charge, galloping through the centre of a vacant Spain midfield, moving unerringly fast for a man of his age – he is 33 – while still looking as ever like a junior doctor on a fun run.

This was pretty much it for Germany as an attacking force in the first hour, Müller, lolloping on to lofted passes, a flailing, gangly, Catherine wheel of a man in full flight. Is this really a plan? It is not so much about the personnel. This is not 1956. It isn’t necessary to field some bullocking hair-oiled goal-tower. It was more the lack of width, the lack of variation and angles. Germany looked, in those moments like a spooked and mimetic version of their opponents. Which is telling in its own right.

Spain and Germany are powerfully connected in the recent history of football tactics, the age of pass and press, of high grade metrics-football. Spain helped to make Germany into the last good version of themselves. Jogi Löw, a devotee of that Pep-Cruyff-Barça style that won a World Cup with a blend of possession and German pragmatism.

It has been hard to replicate the success. Functional gegenpressing,for example, seems to demand a level of drilling that is beyond international football. Perhaps, in the end, it is simply winning that is Germany’s authentic self: tournament play, hard-headed mean-boy footballers. Where are my mulletted mentality-monsters, my moustachioed shootout kings of yesteryear? As for Spain, the most interesting thing about this team is how much they resemble a Spain team, at times to an almost parodic degree. This is Spain turned up to 11.

How much more Spain can a possession-based, technically nimble, counter-pressing Spain become? The answer is none more, none more Spain. This has been the process behind Luis Enrique’s team. Spain have improved by becoming a more authentic version of themselves. They took just a point here. But they have the method and the midfield to test any team in this tournament.

Leaderless Germany are a World Cup team stuck between two conflicting approaches | World Cup 2022

An angry team meeting. Home truths exchanged. Defeat used as a launchpad for improvement. West Germany did it in 1954 after defeat by Hungary and went on to win the World Cup. They did it in 1974 after defeat by East Germany and went on to win the World Cup. They did it in 1982 after defeat by Algeria and went on to reach the final. But that was in the old days, when Germany was a Turniermannschaft – a tournament team – and they could rely on their leaders, their Führungsspieler, to drag them through.

There was an angry team meeting after Germany’s defeat by Japan on Wednesday, but they are no longer a Turniermannschaft and they no longer seem to have any Führungsspieler. For the first time in 20 years, questions are being asked about the direction of German football.

The problem when talking about national sides is how little evidence there is. Friendlies can’t be taken seriously. A lot of qualifiers are mismatches. And so everything comes down to a handful of tournament games, when one decision, one mistake, one moment of brilliance, can transform the perspective. Which is why it’s worth beginning by going back to 2014 and Germany’s World Cup triumph.

The 7-1 win against Brazil in the semi-final, understandably, demands the attention. But that game was really a story of Brazilian hysteria and indiscipline, ruthlessly punished by a Germany forward line supremely drilled in transition, as it had been in beating Portugal in the group; and putting four past Australia, England and Argentina at the previous World Cup.

The key moment in Germany’s 2014 success had come after the edgy 2-1 win over Algeria in the last 16. Jogi Löw, recognising that his team had been fortunate in that game and against Ghana in the group – what if Jordan Ayew had squared it with Ghana 2-1 up? – went for a run along the beach in Rio. By the time he got back he had decided to go back to basics. Miroslav Klose returned at centre-forward, the fluid front three was abandoned and the centre was blocked up. The result was the functional 1-0 wins over France and Argentina (and the Brazilian self-immolation).

The World Cup win is the high point of Das Reboot, the process of reform that began in 2000 as Germany shifted from being a country dismissive of pressing to becoming its most enthusiastic proponent. The new German school – Jürgen Klopp turbocharged the revolution with his eloquent TV punditry in 2006 – became dominant across Europe, but the World Cup win was ultimately an outlier; it had in its final stages very little to do with aggressive pressing.

Hansi Flick on the touchline during Germany’s defeat by Japan — Hansi Flick is struggling to implement the style he employed at Bayern Munich with the Germany national team. Photograph: Nigel Keene/ProSports/Shutterstock

Löw always seemed caught between a desire to play in the modern style he had helped usher in as assistant to Jürgen Klinsmann at the 2006 World Cup and a stodgier but perhaps more effective approach. Germany under him could be attractive, attacking and vulnerable, or dull, defensive and impregnable. After 2014 he never quite got the balance right, culminating in the embarrassing group-stage exit four years ago.

There was talk then about cliques and Löw’s failure to integrate the younger generation who had led Germany to spectacular success at the Confederations Cup in 2017. Failure has many fathers but what has been apparent over the past few months is how that basic tactical issue persists. Hansi Flick was successful with a pugnaciously high line at Bayern Munich, winning the Champions League in 2020. But even with a goalkeeper as adept at sweeping as Manuel Neuer it is very hard, given the limited time available, to implement that with a national team.

Squeezing high up the pitch, trying to win the ball back as near to the opponent’s goal as possible, shutting down counters before they’ve had a chance to develop, may be the most effective way of attacking. But the downside is the space left behind the defensive line and, as Liverpool in 2020-21 and again this season have shown, it doesn’t take much for it to go awry.

Look at Germany’s defeat by Italy in Euro 2012, at the wobble against Ghana in 2014, at the defeats by Mexico and South Korea at the last World Cup, at the struggles against Hungary at Euro 2020 and again this summer, and the same patterns recur: Germany are vulnerable to balls played in behind them. That was the source of both Japan goals: first from a counterattack and then from a simple free-kick. Suddenly Germany is doubting its reformation.

The present system of coaching clearly produced technically adept, tactically intelligent players, but has something been lost along the way? Where are the modern-day Beckenbauers, Rummenigges, Matthäuses, the leaders who will drag them through? Are they focusing too much on rondos and not enough on individual battles?

It’s not just a German problem. There is a curious dearth of young centre-forwards at this World Cup, which is why Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Suárez and Olivier Giroud (or Karim Benzema had he been fit) remain so central to their sides. Kylian Mbappé is the obvious exception, but even he prefers not to play as the out-and-out striker. But that’s an understandable outcome given how influential Spanish football, or more specifically Pep Guardiola’s vision of football, has been in shaping the ethos of modern western European academies. Spain have not really had a top-class centre-forward since David Villa’s broken leg in 2011.

Perhaps Germany would have finished Japan off in the first hour had Timo Werner not sustained a pre-tournament ankle injury but, for them, the issue is less to do with individual battles in the forward line than at the back. Perhaps bringing in Thilo Kehrer for Niklas Süle will eliminate the sort of error that led to Japan’s second, but that inability to press well enough to play as high as Flick desires is leaving Germany vulnerable.

This may be the paradox of Das Reboot; that what has made the German idea of football so successful at club level is precisely what is undermining the national side.

Category: Germany

Germany must reinvent themselves so that Gary Lineker is right again | Germany

Qatar: beyond the football

Rip things up or keep faith? Germany hit the road and now face gamble | World Cup 2022

Qatar: beyond the football

‘A football dwarf’: German media reacts to Die Mannschaft’s early World Cup exit | World Cup 2022

Hansi Flick left in limbo as Germany fail to find new winning blueprint | World Cup 2022

Qatar: beyond the football

Germany dumped out of World Cup despite wild 4-2 win against Costa Rica | World Cup 2022

Qatar: beyond the football

Germany face questions that cut to heart of identity before Costa Rica tie | World Cup 2022

Qatar: beyond the football

Spain can send Germany home but have no plans to offer Japan a biscuit | Spain

Qatar: beyond the football

Germany’s Hansi Flick takes heart from hard-fought point against Spain | World Cup 2022

Qatar: beyond the football

No strikers bad, two strikers good, as Spain and Germany share the spoils | World Cup 2022

Qatar: beyond the football

Leaderless Germany are a World Cup team stuck between two conflicting approaches | World Cup 2022

Qatar: beyond the football