The scene in the German press room after Tuesday night’s match was grim. Four-time world champions, out in the round of 16. Again. Paraguay, a team that had to qualify through the intercontinental playoff, sent them home on penalties. And the reaction back in Germany was brutal but honest.
Bild called it a “disastrous performance” and a “German football nightmare.” That’s not hyperbole when you look at the numbers. Germany has now failed to reach the quarterfinals in three straight World Cups. They haven’t won a knockout match since the 2014 final in Rio. That’s 12 years of tournament futility for a program that used to define efficiency on the biggest stage.
A shootout that went sideways fast
Julian Nagelsmann, at 38 the youngest coach in a World Cup knockout game in 40 years, made a bold call. He gave Deniz Undav his first start of the tournament, trying to spark an offense that had mostly coasted through the group stage. It almost worked. Jonathan Tah thought he’d won it in the 102nd minute, heading in a corner at the far post. But after a long VAR check, the goal was waved off for a foul on the Paraguayan keeper.
That’s where Jurgen Klopp came in. Working German television for the tournament, the former Liverpool manager didn’t hold back. “If that goal is illegal, then Arsenal won’t be English champions,” Klopp said on MagentaTV. “They’ve scored 60 percent of their goals that way. We win the game when that ball goes in. So of course this is brutal.”
The shootout itself was a mess. Paraguay missed two of their first four penalties. Germany had chances to bury them. But Kai Havertz, Nick Woltemade and Tah all failed from the spot. Jose Canale, who’d already missed once, stepped up and calmly finished it for Paraguay. The German players dropped to the turf. Paraguay’s sideline emptied.
Same problems, different tournament
Die Zeit’s Christian Spiller wrote that Germany has “lost all sense of their former glory” and pointed to a wider decline beyond just Bayern Munich’s dominance. He’s got a point. The national team hasn’t looked like itself since that 2014 high. They were unlucky in Qatar in 2022, sure. But this felt different. As Süddeutsche Zeitung put it, this exit was actually more embarrassing than the group stage flop in Qatar because they just didn’t have answers.
France’s L’Equipe called it the biggest shock of the World Cup so far. Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport praised Paraguay, saying they fought with great heart for every ball. And in Spain, Marca ran a headline that summed up the vibe: “There’s nothing left of Germany. Not even in the penalty shootout.”
Nagelsmann now heads into an uncertain future. The German federation hasn’t said anything about his job status yet. But the questions are coming fast. And they’re the same ones the program has been dodging for three World Cups now.
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