Germany in need of fix after low ebb

LONDON • When Thomas Muller charged through but missed with only Jordan Pickford to beat, seconds after England had gone 1-0 up in their Euro 2020 last-16 game on Tuesday, it was indicative of Germany's current state of affairs.

In what turned out to be Joachim Low's final competitive game on Die Mannschaft's bench after 15 years in charge, the 2-0 defeat - and second consecutive early tournament exit - highlighted the need for his incoming successor Hansi Flick to get back to the drawing board.

The Germans fell behind in all four matches they played while also struggling to score, apart from in their emphatic 4-2 win over Portugal, their best game of the tournament. Inconsistency has become a recent German trademark, triggering questions about whether Low should have stepped down much earlier.

The 61-year-old took over Germany in 2006, led them to the final of Euro 2008 and won the 2014 World Cup and the 2017 Confederations Cup in a hugely successful spell.

He then started an overhaul following their shock first-round exit at the 2018 World Cup and their disappointing Nations League campaign that year, dropping several stalwarts, including Muller and Mats Hummels.

Yet his team's transformation stuttered, with the coronavirus pandemic disrupting the process, and then a string of bad results including a 6-0 loss to Spain in November and a 2-1 home loss to North Macedonia in March forced Low to rethink his tournament strategy.

He made a U-turn and recalled Muller and Hummels just before Euro 2020 after a two-year exile but the move did not pay off.

Hummels scored an own goal in their opening group loss to France while Muller could not strengthen their attacking punch, failing to score at a European Championship again - his drought now stands at 15 Euro games without a goal.

Yet some of Germany's younger, more promising players also failed to deliver, with Leroy Sane a shadow of his former self since his big-money move from Manchester City to Bayern Munich following a year out with a cruciate ligament injury.

Serge Gnabry, operating as a striker, also failed to get on the scoresheet in all four games, while Ilkay Gundogan could not control the midfield tempo in the way he has done for City.

"We have had problems since 2018 and we did not succeed in fine-tuning the team and have an automation in our game in the tournament," Low said.

"With all the difficulties in the past two, three years, it has still been a learning process. We lacked efficiency, being more clinical, maybe some maturity.

"Some of these players, however, will develop and learn from this and maybe at our home Euro (in 2024), they will be at top level."

Low now intends to take a sabbatical of at least six months from football as his team lick their wounds.

"There is a huge disappointment. In the locker room, it was completely silent. Everyone is down to the ground as we hoped to get to something more," he said.

"I might need to create an emotional gap and maybe feel the total disappointment and, to some extent, the emptiness after such a long time with the association.

"After that, there might be new challenges waiting for me."

REUTERS