The whole footballing world stood still on Wednesday, November 23, as Japan defeated four-times world champions Germany by 2-1 in a Group E encounter.
The win came just a day after another Asian side in the shape of Saudi Arabia beat former world champions Argentina 2-1. Few people saw this coming and those two results have already gotten into the 2022 World Cup history books as among the most shocking score lines.
The shock result against Japan was a repeat of their Russia 2018 World Cup debacle when, as reigning champions, they lost their opener to Mexico and, after another defeat by South Korea, were condemned to a surprise exit in the first round.
The "German machine" is gradually breaking down from all indications and it must be fixed urgently before they go out of the World Cup at the Group stage for the second time in a row.
The Europeans giants have been in every World cup tournament since it's inception. The only two times they did not enter was 1930 and 1950 due to a banned.
The surprised defeat by Japan has brought lots of questions into the minds of the world football fraternity concerning what has caused the sharp decline of the German national team. Some few answers have been provided after we closely examined the team.
Failure to replace Miroslav Klose
The striker who is of Polish descent but represented Germany retired from international football in 2014. Since then, the Germans have struggled to find a replacement. Klose is the all time top scorer in the history of the FIFA world cup with 16 goals whereas he is also Germany's all time leading scorer at international level with 71 goals.
Since he retired, Germany have been poor upfront as they don't have a typical number 9. They have used both Thomas Muller and Kai Havertz who are all naturally number 10s but things seems not to work out over the years.
The profligacy in the German attack was very glaring against Japan.
No proper workaholic player in midfield
The once feared German "machine" is almost collapsing as they do not have the needed materials to play their preferred system. Germany used to have tenacious midfielders such as Bastian Schweinsteiger, and others, who could run the show for 90 minutes.
Yes! Gundogan and Joshua Kimmich are their two central midfielders now. But they have not made the same impact as Schweinsteiger, Kroos and others made. The duo could not hold their fort against average Japanese midfielders on Wednesday.
Making same mistakes against Asian opponents
Germany seems not to have learnt their lessons as they keep repeating the same mistakes. In Russia, in 2018, they lost 2-0 to South Korea as they failed to go beyond the Group stage.
In that game, Germany went all out exposing their back and the pacy South Koreans capitalized on it. Same thing happened against Japan on Wednesday, November 23.
Underrating their opponents
Germany underrated the Japanese and it eventually caused their downfall. From the start of the game, the Germans were a bit lackadaisical as compared to the Japanese. The Asians played with all seriousness and they were the more purposeful side upfront.
An intriguing thing is that Takuma Asano, the player who netted Japan's winner features for VFL Bochum in the Bundesliga.