World Cup 2026: Football is played with 11 players and now Germany loses in the end

One! Two! Three fiascos! For Germany, the World Cups have been following the same pattern since 2018, an inevitable decline on the international stage for a nation with a currently limited talent pool and no great prospects for the years to come.

A continuous decline

"It's been twelve years since we've achieved anything. When you're knocked out in the first knockout match, it's clearly not enough. It would be presumptuous to say that we're still among the world's elite. That's not the case," admitted German coach Julian Nagelsmann after the defeat against Paraguay in the round of 32 of the 2026 World Cup.

Gary Lineker's maxim, "Football is a game played by 11 and in the end Germany wins," now belongs to a very distant past, as the Mannschaft lost their first match on penalties in the World Cup.

Since their fourth and last world triumph in Brazil in 2014, Germany has experienced an unprecedented period of drought, deprived of the final four of international competitions (World Cup or Euro) for a decade, including three humiliations in the World Cup - first round in 2018 and 2022, round of 16 in 2026.

A limited reservoir

As the bi-weekly magazine kicker pointed out, the current German pool is quite limited, compared to nations like France, England or Spain.

The slightest setback is immediately felt in the results. A first sign of a German revival had emerged at Euro 2024 on home soil (defeat in the quarter-finals against Spain), around the duo Jamal Musiala/Florian Wirtz.

But the two jewels (23 years old) of German football have had a complicated season, between a gradual but sluggish return from a serious injury for Musiala, and a first mixed experience in the English Premier League with Liverpool for Wirtz.

Injuries to Serge Gnabry and Lennart Karl before the World Cup, and to Nico Schlotterbeck during it, also highlighted the weakness of Germany's bench, which nevertheless maintains results in youth competitions (finalist of the Euro-2025 under 21s, beaten by England after eliminating France).

"We have traditionally placed enormous importance on the collective, on tactical behavior, on reliability and on mentality. But today, that is no longer enough," said the former director of the Federation's academy, Tobias Haupt, to the t-online portal.

Young talents like Lennart Karl (18), the Bundesliga's attacking revelation of the season, and Jonas Urbig (21) in goal, offer a few rare reasons for hope. "We have many young talents, but it takes time for them to achieve great things," commented Nagelsmann.

Defense and attack in difficulty

"Matches are decided in both penalty areas. And once again, we failed to defend our area, and we failed to create decisive situations up front," said defender and 2014 World Cup winner Per Mertesacker, a consultant for German public television ZDF, after the match.

In the past, defense and attack were the strengths of the Mannschaft, in the land of Ballon d'Or-winning defenders Franz Beckenbauer and Mathias Sammer, and genius goalscorers like Gerd Müller or Miroslav Klose, who were long at the top of the ranking of best scorers in the final stages of the World Cup.

But Germany's last clean sheet in a World Cup was in the 2014 final against Argentina. The guarantees offered in 2026 by the central defensive pairing of Antonio Rüdiger and Jonathan Tah were nonexistent.

And the last line of defense in 2014, Manuel Neuer, came out of international retirement for the 2026 World Cup without much success.

Finally, in attack, since Miroslav Klose's retirement in the summer of 2014, Germany has been hampered by the absence of a world-class centre-forward capable of unlocking difficult situations, such as against Paraguay.

Nagelsmann at the center of criticism

Julian Nagelsmann, who has been the national team coach since September 2023 and is still under contract until 2028, is at the center of criticism in Germany, particularly for positioning captain Joshua Kimmich as a full-back, even though he plays as a midfielder for Bayern.

"If the Federation wants me to continue, I will continue. And if they don't want me to, they can tell me. I know how football works," explained Nagelsmann, supported by sporting director Rudi Völler.

The shadow of Jürgen Klopp, a consultant for broadcaster Magenta TV, loomed over the Mannschaft throughout the World Cup.