Kai Havertz will be heading back to Arsenal earlier than expected
Kai Havertz didn’t escape criticism as German media raged at the country’s shock World Cup exit.
The Arsenal forward scored his side’s equaliser early in the second half but was among three players to miss from the spot as Paraguay advanced to the last 16 in the biggest shock of the tournament so far.
Germany had never previously lost a World Cup penalty shootout, but that record was spectacularly ended by the South Americans, who battled heroically for 120 minutes before Jose Canale struck the decisive spot-kick in sudden death after Havertz, Nick Woltemade and Jonathan Tah had failed from 12 yards.
Manager Julian Nagelsmann was already unpopular among some supporters and the media. Demands for his departure are now overwhelming following one of the darkest days in German football history, of which Havertz was part.
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Bild said Germany had “delivered a truly awful performance for much of the game. Slow. Boring. Lethargic. It’s another German football nightmare!” Spiegel labelled it the “decline of a once great football nation” and added: “German World Cup failure also bears the name Nagelsmann.”
Sky Sport Germany said the team “lacked everything: speed, ideas, penetration, chances” in the opening period.
Havertz was among the “established players” who came under fire, with the group branded a “failed generation.” It said: “The end, however bitter it may have been, is no surprise. Therefore, things cannot continue as they are.”
In a poll conducted on the Sky Sport Germany website, 93 per cent of respondents demanded that Nagelsmann, who is contracted until 2028, be removed from his post.
Bild has already made its position clear regarding a successor: Jurgen Klopp. The publication described the former Liverpool manager as “uniquely qualified to save German football” following Nagelsmann’s failure to deliver. It ruthlessly concluded: “On the contrary, he crashed headlong into a wall.”
Klopp, who was at the match as a pundit for German TV, aimed a dig at Arsenal as he reflected on Germany’s disallowed goal late in extra-time. Tah crashed home a header from a corner, only for the goal to be chalked off following a VAR check after Waldemar Anton was deemed to have fouled goalkeeper Orlando Gill.
Klopp said: “If the goal is illegal, then Arsenal won’t be English champions,” Klopp told MagentaTV. “They’ve scored 60% of their goals that way. We win the game when the ball goes in. So, of course, this is brutal.”
Meanwhile, international media had a field day at Germany’s expense. Spanish outlet Marca said: “Germany is no longer Germany. They failed to advance from the group stage at two consecutive World Cups – an unprecedented feat.
“On their third attempt, they made it. But they didn’t get any further. Paraguay sent them home in the first round on penalties – a discipline in which the Germans had previously been infallible at World Cups. Germany is not what it once was.”
Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport declared: “Germany, what a flop!” while Mexican publication Esto concluded: “The German myth is over!”
