Germany’s Painful Defeat: Six Insights from the 4-1 Loss to Japan

Germany needs to show that it can beat Japan in some way.

You might ask, “What?” Persistence, skill, accuracy, toughness…

Any of those would have worked, but for most of the game, the Germans couldn’t find one, and Japan beat them 4-1 in a boring game.

Let’s get started. Here are five things I noticed about the game…

Kimmich has too much power and duty in this setup

In theory, Flick was trying to get the “best of both worlds” (no, not the ones you might have heard about in Clerks) by still having a back four but adding Kimmich to the middle during the attack. But that takes a lot of work and moving, and as we saw, it can leave some holes in the defense.

Also, Japan was able to quickly launch counterattacks against Germany, and it didn’t take long for the Japanese to figure out that attacking Nico Schlotterbeck would be a good way to show where Germany was vulnerable. Oh, and what about Schlotterbeck?

Nico Schlotterbeck won't want to think back on this game. — Nico Schlotterbeck won’t want to think back on this game.

As a left back, Schlotterbeck did not work

Schlotterbeck is a good defender, and his straight-line speed is very good. But putting him at left back and asking him to cover faster and smaller players in tight areas was a recipe for disaster, and that’s exactly what happened. Both of Japan’s goals in the first half came when the team went after Schlotterbeck and sent in crosses that he couldn’t get to in time.

Schlotterbeck’s carelessness hurt Germany again in the 41st minute when a bad pass sent Ayase Ueda on a breakaway with only Marc-André ter Stegen to stop him. Flick’s team would have been down 3-1 going into the locker room at halftime if Germany’s goalie hadn’t made a huge save.

Fair enough, left center-back Antonio Rüdiger was also terrible, but Schlotterbeck had a hard time that day.

Sané plays at a very high level.

Leroy Sané has been getting a lot of attention from Bayern Munich fans over the past month, so it didn’t come as a surprise to many of them when the winger was a real threat to Japan every time he touched the ball.

But if you haven’t been watching Bayern Munich, you might be wondering if the attacker has always been this good and troublesome. The answer is a sure “Yes” to both questions.

Sané was hard for Japan to match up with, and if he had gotten the ball in better spots, he could have scored again and again.

Leroy-Sane-was-the-best-player-for-Germany

Wirtz still needs to get better for the national team, but this was a good game

During this game, Germany’s Florian Wirtz made a play that was very important. The skilled young player helped set up Sané’s goal when he slid a pass to a teammate who was cutting in on goal. This made it easy for the teammate to score. The best moment for the 20-year-old star in a Germany shirt was when lkay Gündoan passed the ball to Wirtz. Wirtz was able to look at the situation while moving and pass the ball to Leroy Sané in the right spot.

But not everything was good for the child. He sometimes didn’t work well with his friends and couldn’t get into the flow of the game. He seems more sure of himself when he plays for Bayer Leverkusen than when he plays for Germany.

Germany is in good hands with Wirtz and Jamal Musiala, who are both still young, but Flick needs to find a way to get more out of the defender. Wirtz’s work could not be called into question, though. He did bring energy to the field, but as the No. 10 for this team, he didn’t do enough with the ball.

Ter Stegen was really cool.

Marc-André ter Stegen, the goalie for FC Barcelona, let in two goals that were a little bit lucky, but he stopped at least three other “golden opportunities” that should have been goals. If not for the 31-year-old, this match could have been a rout.

Ter Stegen hasn’t always been this good for the German national team, but against Japan, he showed how valuable he is in a big way.

Marc-André ter Stegen kept Germany from getting completely destroyed.

Flick has problems

After a string of terrible games, Flick chose an odd time to try out such big ideas. It smells like someone is desperately trying to stay alive and is hoping that a few new tricks will be enough to put off the inevitable for a little while longer.

In the end, Germany’s players aren’t good enough, but they won’t be fired. Even though some have played horribly (Schlotterbeck, Rüdiger, Kai Havertz), others haven’t done much (Gündoan, Gnabry), and a few more have been all over the place (Wirtz, Emre Can), Flick is Germany’s best bet.

Maybe the worst thing is that the team often looks like it doesn’t know what it’s doing and has trouble standing out in almost every game now. It could be that the players aren’t driven or that they aren’t responding to the coaching, but whatever the problem is, it’s bad.

To be clear, Flick is not the one making mistakes on the field. The coach can only do what he can with what he has, but there will have to be a “fall guy” for this at some point, and Flick will be that man.

The boss at Bayern Munich never seemed like he wasn’t in charge, but now it looks like he has lost control of the team. Things haven’t gone well because of injuries and the fact that almost everyone on the team hasn’t grown. However, Flick is in serious danger of losing his job if he can’t get his boys to play their best against a France team that is so strong it’s crazy. Most people would say “good luck!” to that.

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