The mood around the DFB team could hardly be worse after the 4-1 defeat against Japan. The protagonists tried to explain themselves after the game.
Hansi Flick (national coach): “I think we’re doing it well and I’m the right coach. But I know that there’s a lot of dynamism in professional football. I can’t foresee what else will come. First of all, you’re brutally disappointed. We don’t have one at the moment the means to outplay such a compact defense. It was simply not enough.”
Ilkay Gündogan (captain): “I don’t know if I would use the word embarrassment, but you have to be honest: Japan was clearly better and superior to us in all respects. We make far too many individual mistakes. The trend speaks for itself, expectations and reality are far apart apart, that’s hard and disappointing. We’re not good enough right now, it’s a very bitter day. The team has to question itself.”
Lothar Matthäus (record national player): “The bad thing is: the result is okay, it could have been even higher. The German team was unimaginative, without compactness, without joy, had no self-confidence – except for Leroy Sane. There haven’t been many in the DFB in the last few months behind Hansi. I doubt whether we can still keep him now. Somewhere he has lost the trust he has earned.”
Marc-André ter Stegen (goalkeeper): “I don’t think we played a good game today. Individual quality allowed us to get through in one place or another. We certainly made mistakes today that we shouldn’t make. Then you lose. We are self-critical and know that “We didn’t do a good job.”