Germany's players react following the UEFA Nations League soccer match between Spain and Germany in Seville, Spain, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020. Spain won the match 6-0. The team coached by Joachim Löw has been in decline since losing to France in the European Champions semifinals in 2016, and the slide arguably started before that, after the World Cup win in 2014.
Löw promised a shakeup. Mesut Özil retired from the squad amid the fallout for the debacle, and Löw cut short the international careers of stalwarts like Thomas Muller, Mats Hummels and Jerome Boateng. The humiliating 6-0 loss to Spain in the Nations League on Tuesday was the biggest for a German team since a 6-0 thrashing against Austria in a friendly in Berlin in 1931. Only England has ever won by more, 9-0 in a friendly in Oxford in November 1909.The warning signs were there before. Germany had produced one uninspiring performance after another this year in laboured wins over Ukraine and the Czech Republic, while conceding late equalizers in draws against Spain, Switzerland and Turkey.
“We thought we were a step further after the last games and this year, which has been generally difficult,” Löw said of a schedule that has been complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. “Now we've had to take a real setback. We'll have to see how we deal with it among the coaching staff. Unfortunately we don't have the option of working with the players, to train or to play a game.
Decline from when, the 1990s? Spain has been good for years