They landed early Friday evening. First the machine with the players of the German national team stopped in Munich, then it went on to Frankfurt. While the pros can now go on vacation with their families before the preparations for the continuation of the leagues begin, the sporting directors around national coach Hansi Flick and Oliver Bierhoff have a duty to deal with the premature end of the World Cup in Qatar and the negative trend of the national team to analyze.
Bernd Neuendorf, President of the German Football Association (DFB), is already expecting the first results next week when he asks for a crisis meeting in Frankfurt/Main.
The players, on the other hand, now have time to introspect, to reflect – and, as Antonio Rüdiger put it, to question themselves. The 29-year-old defense chief of the German team was the first player to speak up on social networks hours after the World Cup ended. Immediately after the 4-2 win against Costa Rica – a victory that was useless in the end – he spoke at length in the catacombs of the Al Bayt Stadium on Doha and said: “We lack the last greed, something dirty. I think we’re a very, very nice team.” The words were clear.
He now let others follow them. The 57-time national player wrote on Twitter: “Just a huge disappointment… We had planned so much and in the end disappointed ourselves the most – we shouldn’t look for excuses for that, but question ourselves. It will take me some time to digest that.”
After the exit in Qatar, Rüdiger allowed himself to be provoked by a teenager at the exit of the mixed zone. The young man, a volunteer for the world association Fifa, had gleefully called after him in German: “Off home!” The Real Madrid international then replied: “What did you just say? Off home?” After he didn’t get an answer, Rüdiger said, “You idiot” and sped off.
Rüdiger was first nominated for a tournament in 2016. Shortly before the European Championships, however, he had to sit out due to a knee injury, and Jonathan Tah was called up to replace him. But he was involved in the 2018 World Cup, the European Championship last year and the World Cup in Qatar. With the exception of the Confed Cup, which Germany won in 2017 with him in the squad, Rüdiger has only experienced tournaments in the recent past where the German team has disappointed in sporting terms.
Joshua Kimmich felt the same way. He had already referred to this after the game. “I’m afraid that being eliminated will be associated with my name,” said Kimmich after the bitter World Cup exit: “I joined in 2016, before that Germany was always in the semifinals. Then you come along and are eliminated twice in the preliminary round, last year in the round of 16. That’s not something you want to stand for.”
After the final whistle in Al-Khor, the 27-year-old stood in a heap of misery in the mixed zone, close to tears. “It’s the worst day of my career,” said Kimmich, who expects the consequences to be noticeable after another tournament failure: “I’m afraid I’ll fall into a hole.”
