Why is German football broken?

Recently, Germany lost a match to Austria 2-0. It was the first time that Austria beat Germany since 1986, just more proof that Germany’s men’s football team – the winner of four World Cups and three European Championships – has been in steep decline in recent years.

With consecutive group-stage exits at the FIFA World Cup and ranking outside the top 10 for the last four years, the once-feared German football machine appears to be broken. Following a humiliating 1-4 loss to Japan in an international friendly, the German Football Association (DFB) fired coach Hansi Flick on September 11, 2023. This is the first time a men’s national team coach has been sacked.

After being the ‘tournament team’ for the most part nearly 60 years (apart from a blip in the mid-1990s to early 2000s), and only a decade after winning the 2014 FIFA World Cup, German football is at a crossroads, only eight months before hosting EURO 2024.

One of the main problems has been its over-reliance on a particular playing style, thus becoming predictable.

The 4-2-3-1 formation, which helped it to win the World Cup 2014 and to the semifinal in EURO 2016, is no longer as suited with the current lot of players as it lacks quality in certain areas of the field – centre forward and full-backs.

Germany has struggled to find a proper striker since Miroslav Klose retired in 2014. Timo Werner and Kai Havertz have both been tried in the position, but neither has come close to producing the veteran’s numbers.

In the absence of Klose, the burden of scoring has been on Thomas Muller, who is an attacking midfielder by trade. Mario Gomes and Lucas Podolski have also contributed but both of them faded away after the EURO 2016 campaign.

Defensively, Germany has also been leaky.

Despite having talented centre-backs, the team has struggled to keep clean sheets. Antonio Rudiger, the same defender who won the UEFA Champions League with Chelsea and Real Madrid, respectively, was embarrassed by Japan in the World Cup.

Germany’s positional superiority allows fullbacks to overlap and generate overloads in the attacking third, but it also leaves it vulnerable to rapid counterattacks. This is caused by the lack of cohesion in central midfield and proper fullbacks who can track back and defend.

So, can Germany perform at Euro2024 where they will be hosts? That remains to be seen.