German Media React After World Cup Humiliation, Call Team ‘Slow, Boring, Lethargic’

German Media React After World Cup Humiliation, Call Team ‘Slow, Boring, Lethargic’

Germany’s shock World Cup exit at the hands of Paraguay has unleashed a wave of outrage across the country’s media, with newspapers delivering scathing verdicts on Julian Nagelsmann’s side and describing the elimination as another dark chapter in the nation’s football decline.

The four-time world champions crashed out of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the round of 16, extending a dismal run that has seen Germany fail to progress beyond the last 16 in each of the past three tournaments. They have also not won a World Cup knockout match since lifting the trophy in Rio de Janeiro in 2014.

Nagelsmann, who at 38 became the youngest coach to lead a team in a World Cup knockout match in 40 years, had opted for an attack-minded line-up by handing tournament top scorer Deniz Undav his first start.

Germany believed they had snatched a dramatic winner in the 102nd minute when Jonathan Tah headed home from a corner, only for the goal to be ruled out after a lengthy VAR review for a foul on the goalkeeper.

The match eventually went to penalties, where Germany’s campaign unravelled completely as Kai Havertz, Nick Woltemade and Jonathan Tah all failed to convert, allowing Paraguay’s Jose Canale to seal a famous victory.

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The country’s biggest-selling newspaper, Bild, described the display as a “disastrous performance,” saying Nagelsmann’s side produced “a truly awful performance for much of the game. Slow. Boring. Lethargic. It’s another German football nightmare.”

Die Zeit blamed Germany’s defeat on a “lack of imagination,” arguing that the team had lost all sense of its former greatness. Columnist Christian Spiller said the problems reflected the broader decline of German football beyond the dominance of Bayern Munich.

For Süddeutsche Zeitung, the latest elimination was even more humiliating than Germany’s group-stage exit at the 2022 World Cup, insisting that, unlike in Qatar, there were no excuses this time because the team simply failed to find solutions when it mattered most.

Meanwhile, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung questioned whether Nagelsmann could continue in charge, describing his relationship with the national team as “beyond saving.”

Despite the widespread criticism, some observers felt Germany were hard done by over the controversial VAR decision that ruled out Tah’s extra-time goal.

Former Jürgen Klopp, working as a television pundit during the tournament, argued that similar goals had been routinely allowed in the Premier League.

“If the goal is illegal, then Arsenal won’t be English champions,” Klopp told MagentaTV. “They’ve scored 60 per cent of their goals that way. We win the game when the ball goes in. So, of course, this is brutal.”

 

German Media React After World Cup Humiliation, Call Team ‘Slow, Boring, Lethargic’