"We cannot and will not simply return to business as usual." That's DFB President Bernd Neuendorf, speaking after Germany became the tournament's most expensive footnote for the third World Cup in a row.
A 4-3 penalty shootout loss to Paraguay. Not a contender. Not a dark horse. Paraguay — a side nobody seriously expected to eliminate the four-time world champions. And yet here we are, with Germany out in the round of 32 and a nation once again asking what on earth went wrong.
A decade without a knockout win
The 2018 group stage exit felt like a scandal. The 2022 repeat felt like a structural problem. This one confirms it's something deeper. Germany haven't won a knockout match at a World Cup since they lifted the trophy in Brazil in 2014. That's eleven years of nothing past the group stage or, this time, just barely beyond it.
Neuendorf — in charge since 2022 and now watching the national team implode across two World Cups and a quarter-final exit at Euro 2024 on home soil — met with coach Julian Nagelsmann and national team director Rudi Voeller the day after elimination. The language coming out of that meeting is measured, but the subtext isn't: something has to change.
Nagelsmann, 38, became the youngest coach in a World Cup knockout match in four decades. That's a curiosity, not a consolation. He said after the Paraguay loss that he'd like to stay, but acknowledged the decision was no longer his. Voeller and Neuendorf hold the cards now.
What happens to Nagelsmann?
His contract runs to 2028. Tearing it up early costs money. Keeping him costs credibility, at least in the eyes of German fans and TV pundits already calling for his head. Neither option is comfortable, which is probably why the DFB is promising a calm, thorough review rather than anything immediate.
"We will calmly examine the reasons why the team was unable to realise its potential," Neuendorf said. That phrase — unable to realise its potential — does a lot of heavy lifting. It implies the squad is good enough. It implies this is a coaching or system failure, not a talent drought. Whether that reading survives the actual review is another matter entirely.
For anyone with Germany in any long-term outright market, the picture just got murkier. A squad in post-tournament review mode, a coach fighting for his job, and a federation that has now made the same post-World Cup promises twice before — none of that screams stability. The DFB says business as usual is over. They said something similar after 2018, and again after 2022. The results speak for themselves.
