The German national soccer team started the World Cup in Qatar with a disappointing result. After 1982 (1: 2 against Algeria) and 2018 (0: 1 against Mexico), Germany is only starting a World Cup for the third time without a win – the German team often even improved during the course of the tournament and thus established the myth of the “tournament team”.
But a look at the most recent results at the World and European Championships shows that there is not much left of the myth.
At the 2016 European Championship, the DFB team reached the semi-finals, but lost 2-0 to hosts France in the semi-finals. Two years later at the World Cup in Russia, Joachim Löw’s team only managed one win against Sweden (2-1) after losing the opening match against Mexico. Germany then lost 2-0 to South Korea and were eliminated from the tournament. The performance of the DFB-Elf at the pan-European EM 2021 was similarly disappointing. In the preliminary round there was a 0-1 defeat against France, a win against Portugal (4-2) and a draw against Hungary (2-2). It was all over in the round of 16: “The team” lost 2-0 to England.
In the balance of the last eight World Cup and European Championship games there are only two wins, one draw and five defeats. The 1: 2 against Japan on Wednesday – for the first time in a major tournament under coach Hansi Flick – is the sixth World Cup or European Championship defeat since 2016, a sobering result. And the result is also a signal: In order to revive the myth of the “tournament team”, the national team must improve their performance significantly against Spain on Sunday (8 p.m.) and Costa Rica on Thursday (8 p.m.).
