Kroos: We got what we deserved
Midfielder rues ‘black day for German football’ Low says he will wait before deciding future
in Samara
Toni Kroos, the man whose lastminute goal against Sweden had kept his nation in the World Cup, was blunt about Germany’s exit in their next game against South Korea. It was, the Real Madrid midfielder insisted, nobody’s fault but their own.
“At the end we did not do enough,” he said. “To be honest, if we can’t score a goal in 90 minutes against Korea then we don’t deserve to go through.
“We got what we deserved. We were not unlucky. It is not down to bad luck.”
They may not be used to it, but there is no question the members of the German football team know how to lose.
At the Kazan Arena, after they were evicted from the tournament at the earliest point in their history, the tone was dignified and honest.
Kroos, stopping in the mixed zone to face the media when many of his contemporaries would have put their heads down and dashed for the exit, voiced what many believed: with Germany requiring victory against what was perceived to be the weakest team in the group to advance, nobody could believe what they had just seen.
“I don’t know if it is the darkest for German football but it is definitely a very black one,” he said. “I don’t think any of us expected this at all – I don’t think anyone did.
“Clearly we expected this to be a long tournament for us, we expected to be here for a lot longer. But what I can and will say is that after three games, we weren’t able to play our best at any stage of it in any of them, really.”
Kroos added: “At no stage in the whole tournament did I really feel like it was a final for us. At the end, we had to go for the goal and then they scored. And at the end we knew Sweden were in front, so we had to risk even more. We had chances but didn’t take any of them, and that sums up the whole tournament for us really.”
What happens next is what will concern the German football public. So used are they to advancing to the later stages of tournaments, after their last ignominious exit, at Euro 2000, a root-and-branch reevaluation of the entire football system took place.
Joachim Low, the coach, was not ruling out a similar reaction. “It is historic,” Low said of the defeat. “I am sure this will create some public uproar in Germany.”
He was right there. “Maybe we invited the wrong players,” said 1990 World Cup winner Lothar Matthaeus, who summed up the general mood. “They were not playing with passion. They were not playing with body language. They did not have speed in the game.
“Many things that gave us the World Cup four years ago we were missing in this World Cup. They have to analyse the tournament, and not only the tournament but the last 12 months. Everything that was good four years ago in Brazil was going badly in Russia.”
And Low did not disagree, not One issue for Germany is bringing through talent to join Leon Goretzka and Julian Draxler (above). Just three of their squad at the 2015 Euro Under-21 Championship were in their World Cup squad – the lowest of any side there.
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7 5 5 4 3 seeking any excuse beyond the team’s incompetence. The questions, though, will be asked of him, not least in his squad selection. It might have helped had he been able to call on a player who has the one thing this Germany side evidently lacked: pace.
But Leroy Sane was left in Manchester. Working out how to utilise the City winger properly will be among the many items cluttering the coach’s in-tray.
That is if he stays in control. After admitting that he bore full responsibility for the failure, he was asked if he would be resigning.
It was too early, was his pointed conclusion. “It is too early for me to answer that question,” he said. “We need a couple of hours to see things clearly. The disappointment is deep inside me.”
As a final indignity, the flight home to Frankfurt went no better than their campaign, departing one hour late with a front toilet that failed to work. It all seemed peculiarly appropriate.