THE SUNDAY COLUMN: Germany’s World Cup Disaster

Paul Schmidt-Troschke takes an in-depth look at Germany’s 2026 footballing debacle. 

1 SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to this week's World Cup Football,

etc.

Sunday column with me, Paul Schmitroschke.

Today I am going to lead you through the most important steps

for why Germany, again, for the third time in a row, exited the

biggest football competition in the world after winning it just

12 years ago.

For German football, this year's World Cup exit can only be

described as a total disaster.

And I am neither the only one, nor is it an exaggeration, when

I say that the round of 32 match against the unbeatable football

powerhouse of Paraguay was the worst performance I have ever

seen from a German national team in a World Cup.

But how could it get so far?

Here is the autopsy answering exactly that question.

A staggering statistic to begin with.

Germany's last World Cup match without conceding a goal was the

final in 2014.

The fact by itself tells its own story about the enormous and

structural weakness in Germany's defense.

One of the most obvious points of failure was the inability to

effectively counter an opposing team using a deep block defense.

Something which we have seen a lot, especially underdog teams,

using in this 2026 World Cup.

For Germany, this was one of the biggest issues in all of the

games after the first match against Curaçao, namely in the

games against Ivory Coast, Ecuador, and Paraguay.

And while the team did not have a strategy, neither did

individual players.

And that is one of the most damning conclusions from this

World Cup that neither as a team nor on any individual level

Germany was able to stand out in any category.

The whole squad was lacking everything as a whole as well as

individually.

For the fifth most valuable team in this World Cup coming in just

under 1 billion euros, and with players like Jamal Muziala or

Florian Wirz being worth more than 100 million euros each,

this performance is an indictment across all

categories.

While the players' failure represents only one side of the

equation, coaching is the other.

And that was arguably even more consequential.

German coach Julian Nagelsmann has experienced the biggest

downfall of a German national team coach in decades, and he

truly earned it, since he ignored all warnings, and that

quite arrogantly.

When it came to the nomination of players for the national

team, Nagelsmann declared the merit principle to be his best

tool for choosing the best players.

But when the list of players was released a couple of weeks

before the tournament, there was not too much left of said merit

principle.

The second best attacker of the last season in the Bundesliga,

Dennis Undav, was not among the starting eleven for the first

three matches.

But still, a skilled communicator could have

explained the situation quite well.

But Julen Nagelsmann does not exhibit such traits.

Instead, he reacted quite annoyed.

And for a coach who sets out to have a clear plan for

everything, he made surprisingly many changes and decisions which

completely contradict his own words.

The most prominent case, of course, was the backstabbing of

Germany's number one, Oliver Baumgart, who just days after

the season ended got the message that retired Manuel Neuer will

make a surprising return.

But lastly, the best coach in the world would have had his

trouble to create a successful German team for this tournament,

because German football is struggling with a deep

structural crisis.

It all starts with expectations from both fans and the German FA

itself.

We understand us still being a world-class footballing nation,

which we are obviously not anymore.

We can get there again, but only with a clear plan and managed

expectations.

Instead of thinking that we can realistically win everything

every time, we have to understand how past German

success came into fruition.

A team worthy of winning the World Cup or European

championship needs to be built over time.

The most important thing is not winning, but seeing results of

constant improvement over time.

As Germany was not among the top 16 teams in the past three World

Cups, this has now ultimately achieved what was necessary.

A collective realization that things have to change

fundamentally and that we are not anymore who we used to think

we are.

When asked in 2024, after Germany was kicked out by Spain

in the quarterfinals of the Euros, German coach Julian

Nagelsmann said that the only thing which makes him sad is

that we now must wait two years before we will win the World

Cup.

I think we have to wait much longer for that to happen again.

But most importantly, even we Germans having failed so hard

and decisively over the last twelve years, we can still look

down on our southern European neighbor, Italy.