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In women’s football, Germany has one of the most solid and structured systems to be found in Europe. It was the first major European country to follow the empowerment of the women’s movement that began in the Scandinavian countries in the early 1990s, as well as the first to integrate women’s divisions into existing men’s clubs, to facilitate their growth and sustainability. These initiatives, taken years in advance of other countries such as Italy, Spain and England, have guaranteed results and popularity, especially in the early 2000s.
The German national team has won two World Cups and eight editions of the European Championships; its club teams have contested and won the most Champions League finals, and not only with the women’s divisions of men’s clubs, as in the case of Wolfsburg, but also with all-female teams such as Frankfurt and Turbine Potsdam, always rarer at this level of European football.
It is for all these reasons that the elimination of Germany in the groups of the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand was one of the biggest surprises of the tournament, even more than the elimination of the United States in the round of 16, holders of two editions. The German national team had in fact presented itself as second in the world rankings and European vice-champion, and had also ended up in a group considered widely within its reach made up of Colombia, Morocco (debutant) and South Korea.
They had also started the group by beating Morocco 6-0, a result which had raised their odds among the favourites, but which for some may also have been the primary reason for their elimination. In fact, in the following two games, Germany lacked reactivity and often seemed slower than their opponents, almost as if they were too sure of their superiority. The opponents, on the other hand, despite having fewer means available to compete at those levels, have put them in difficulty: especially Colombia, whose victory with a goal in the seventh minute of added time he compromised qualification.
Germany could still have qualified for their last game but needed to beat South Korea, against whom they fell behind in the opening minutes and then failed to go beyond the draw, thus allowing Morocco to overtake them.
The elimination of the German women’s national team was inevitably compared to that of the men’s national team, eliminated in the group stages both at the World Cup in Qatar, due to a defeat against Japan, and four years earlier in Russia, when as reigning world champion they were defeated first from Mexico and then from South Korea. These defeats are also surprising because they clash with the winning and constant image that is historically associated with German football, well represented by one of football’s most famous aphorisms, the one attributed to the English striker Gary Lineker: “Football is a simple game: twenty-two men chase a ball for ninety minutes, and in the end Germany wins.”
Leroy Sané and Antonio Rüdiger after their elimination from the World Cup in Qatar (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
After the latest results in Germany there is talk of a profound crisis of the major national teams, but it is still difficult to find explanations and take suitable countermeasures, as German football has already done in the past with great results. After the 2004 European Championships, for example, the elimination in the group stage with an emblematic draw against Latvia started a profound renewal of the system which in the following years has been much talked about, due to its positive effects.
In those years, the involvement in the national football system of second generations of African and Middle Eastern immigrants, up to the margins, was favored and new training methods were adopted: all supported by the economic solidity of German football, still today considered a guarantee . The results of this long-term project were then made evident by the quantity of quality players emerging from the youth sectors (still competitive), by a new generation of modern and high-level coaches and by the impressive consistency in the results of the men’s national teams, made even more evident from the inconstancy of the other European movements: from 2006 to 2016 there was no tournament without a German national team among the top four.
The women’s movement has benefited from the same solidity and in a different context has achieved even better results, which is why the elimination at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand can be considered physiological. In the men’s category, however, the results continue to be negative, and what is most worrying is the lack of responses to the changes made in recent years, not to mention that there are still many quality players (there are no uncovered departments, as is happening at the Italy) and first-level facilities.
At the 2018 World Cup the coach was still Joachim Löw, world champion four years earlier, but at those in Qatar there was his replacement, Hans-Dieter Flick, who is still in charge but doesn’t seem to be getting over the crisis . In the last five matches, the men’s national team has only won against Peru and lost against Belgium, Poland and Colombia. At the beginning of the year, after the World Cup in Qatar, the Federation wanted to support Flick by setting up a team in charge of following the reconstruction of the national team which includes great champions of the past such as Rudi Völler, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Oliver Kahn and Matthias Sammer, but even professionals taken from other sports to have a broader view of the situation, such as Oliver Mintzlaff, middle distance runner of the early 2000s.
However, the results are still not seen and in June, after the last defeat, Völler he said: «We may have underestimated the situation, we don’t have enough quality». The German press also describes the establishment of this team of experts with skepticism. «Flick is like a programmer who keeps repeating the same mistake», was written on Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungwhile for German wave the experts involved by the Federation seem to have been called only “to straighten the rudder, smile at the cameras and remind everyone of the classic values of German football”.
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