The ghost of elimination in the first phase of the World Cup in Russia, in 2018, again attacked Germany in the 2-1 defeat by Japan, this Wednesday (23), in Qatar. And the fall left players crestfallen and frustrated.
Midfielder Gündogan, scorer of the goal that opened the scoring, was the most emphatic and hit hard on the way his team acted, giving spaces for the rival to turn the scoreboard.
“We made it very easy for Japan. Especially the second goal, I don’t know if there’s ever been an easier goal at a World Cup. This shouldn’t happen. You get the feeling that not everyone up front wanted the ball. We are here.” in the World Cup. [Neuer] saved us a few times. We had incredible chances to score but we didn’t take advantage of them,” she lamented.
Goalkeeper Neuer also criticized his defense in an unusual way. “We made the opposition strong. If you don’t telegraph passes forward, you won’t get an eye for an eye. We thought we would sort this out somehow. This is a huge disappointment, we are frustrated. Now we have a problem. We have to play better against Spain and show the potential we have”.
The captain also emphasized the importance that his group’s defensive mistakes had for the final result. “Everyone has a lot of experience, individual mistakes happened in defence, we let them run free, that was clear to see, and we couldn’t stop them from scoring the second goal. It could have been different. I’m a person who really cares. worries about defensive play.”
Striker Thomas Müller was a bit against his teammates. He stated that his team dominated the game, but also lamented the collective failures.
“We were absolutely superior and we played a good game. With this lack of efficiency at the front and back, it’s difficult to win games. I’m still lost. The way the game was played, most of the time you come out victorious. We have to take care to shake it off. We have to beat Spain, we wanted to take that pressure off against Spain”.
Another who was shaken was German coach Hansi Flick, who said he was “brutally disappointed”.
“We deservedly took a 1-0 lead, it was more than deserved. We missed a lot of scoring chances. Suffice it to say that Japan clearly beat us in terms of efficiency. The individual mistakes we made simply must not happen. We need to train the players now. We’re not going to have a good trip home because everybody has it on their minds right now and everybody’s bummed that we didn’t win the game today. We’ve got two games left.”
Regarding the silent protest at the beginning of the game against the prohibition of the use of the rainbow captain’s armband against discrimination, when the athletes covered their mouths with their hands, Julian Brandt stated that the action was what the team could do do in the situation. He responded to a question from a reporter in the mixed zone about Denmark’s threat to withdraw from FIFA because of the ban.
“On Denmark, it was the Danish team. We are German and we choose to do this. Sometimes what we do is not good enough, but that’s what we managed to do. We lost the game, so that’s the biggest problem for us now. We have two more games and we’ll see what we can do”, he said.
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